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THE GLORY AND 
THE DREAM 


BY 

ANNA PRESTON 

Author of “The Record of a Silent Life’* 



“Where Is it now, the glory and the dream?** 

— W ORDSWORTH 



NEW YORK 

B. W. HUEBSCH 


MCMXV 


Copyright, 1915, by 
B. W. HUEBSCH 
Printed in U. S. A. 




QEC -71915 

©CI.A414920 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Great Unknown 1 

II The New Country 19 

III The Rebel’s House S 2 

IV The Prisoner in the Barn .... 42 

V Tumultuous Privacy of Storm” . . 55 

VI Nieder’s Mother 63 

VII The Fairy Road 86 

VIII Christmas 106 

IX The Drive to Town 124 

X Old Colquhoun 149 

XI The Toucan 158 

XII The Murder of Mr. Musteed . . . .170 

XIII Mr. Jane Dove 181 

XIV ‘‘Monarch of All I Survey” . . . .191 

XV Brian 208 

XVI Cleared 224 

XVII “The Sense of Tears in Mortal Things” 237 



THE GLORY AND THE 
DREAM 


CHAPTER I 

THE GREAT UNKNOWN 

Michael had spent six joyful years in eagerly, 
curiously, making the acquaintance of the 
world into which he had come, before he found 
a hint of sadness in it. On the contrary, he 
found it such a beautiful and happy place that 
he grudged ever to close his eyes, and would 
vigorously demand an instant release from 
his crib at the first break of dawn. Meadows 
full of damp grass, where he was always find- 
ing a fresh spot to be happy in; a brook where 
he wanted to go on and on playing, always, 
and never stop ; the monastery garden, steeped 
in a mysterious sweetness and quiet, full of 
1 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


monks who were all alike, into which he some- 
times strayed; a mother who was sometimes 
very much in the way, when she made him come 
in to meals, or washed him, or put him to bed, 
just as he was running to do some dehghtful 
thing that had come into his head, and whom 
he sometimes hugged and hugged, yet couldn’t 
hug enough; these were a few of the good 
things that filled up his little life. 

He knew, vaguely, that this wasn’t every- 
thing; that there was something very big and 
solemn above and beyond, and that he must 
feel solemn every night when he said his 
prayers, no matter how many other things he 
might have to think about. Although he lived 
in Claddagh, where everybody about him 
spoke the Irish tongue, his parents spoke Eng- 
lish sometimes ; but he was better pleased when 
they spoke Irish. His mother taught him 
the little prayer that English-speaking chil- 
dren say, and a strange hushed feeling always 
came over him at the thought of the soul 
folded up inside of him, which he prayed the 
Lord to keep. And at the words: — 

2 


THE GREAT UNKNOWN 


**And if I die before I wake 
I pray the Lord my soul to take/* 

a momentary chill would pass over him at 
the thought that he might die before he opened 
his eyes on the delightful world again. But 
then, he wouldn’t. He always woke up all 
right. But he had a picture in his mind of 
the soul being taken — a brown, folded, passive 
thing. The Irish word, anam^ gave him a very 
different idea. It made him think of some- 
thing vague and black, that filled up a person’s 
whole inside. But he really thought very little 
about it. These ideas were merely images 
that the words imprinted on his mind, without 
any thought on his part. 

But there came a time when his mother was 
ill, and his father told him he mustn’t run 
into her room and disturb her. He knew from 
his father’s tone that it would be very dreadful 
to do that, and he meant to obey; but once he 
got wildly excited chasing the cat, and first 
thing he knew he was running after it into 
her room, shouting: — ‘‘You thief! You 
thief!” Then a languid voice from the bed, 
3 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


saying; — ‘‘What has he stolen?” suddenly 
brought back his father’s command, and he 
hung his head, overcome with shame, and would 
hardly answer the question. His mother was 
not angry — she only explained, kindly and 
patiently, that you never called anybody a thief 
unless he had stolen something, and this made 
Michael more deeply ashamed than any re- 
proof could have done. He never forgot 
again. 

At first his mother’s illness made no differ- 
ence to him, except for this incident; his joy- 
ful life was not touched or disturbed. He 
played in the meadow and the brook just the 
same, the smell of wet grass and steaming 
earth filled him with the same wild delight, 
and made him want to run and run, as if he 
could never be still again. He continued to 
watch and listen everywhere for fairies, filled 
with the hope that he would find them in the 
next clump of grass or weeds he investigated. 
But after a while his aunts began to come very 
often, and they were crying whenever he saw 
them, and his father was silent and sorrowful; 

4 


THE GREAT UNKNOWN 


and then, although Michael still did all these 
things, the warmth and sunshine seemed to go 
out of them. His mother wanted him to come 
in and see her every day, and cuddled him up 
close to her; but one morning when he was 
brought in, and climbed on the bed to hug her, 
she didn’t hug back, and although she spoke 
to him, and called him a chuisUn mo chroidhe, 
it wasn’t like having her speak to him at all. 
He burst out crying, for he knew something 
very dreadful was coming, though he had no 
idea what it was. Next morning his father 
took him in his arms and told him she was 
dead. 

Michael broke into a loud howl, not because 
he wanted to cry, but because it was so strange 
and sudden, so utterly outside his range of ex- 
perience that he could not even attempt to 
understand it, and he wanted to drown out all 
sensation in the physical exercise of making a 
noise. After that, the bright, fresh world was 
completely blotted out by the blackness that 
enveloped everything. Crowds of people in 
black clothes filled the house, and in the night 
6 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

there were such awful crying noises that 
Michael could not go to sleep, but sat up in 
his crib, shivering with horror, and thinking 
about all the strange things his aunts had said 
to him that day. They had told him an angel 
had come and taken his mother’s soul away, 
and he had said:^ — “Why didn’t you tell me 
when it came? I would have frightened it 
away!” They had told him that nobody could 
frighten away the death angel, but Michael 
insisted that he would have fought with it till 
it flew away. Then they told him, so solemnly 
that he knew it must be true, that nobody had 
ever done that, and the death angel came to 
everybody. Thus Michael learned that every- 
body had to die, and he thought of it now with 
passionate rebellion. He didn’t want to die 
that way, and have everybody turn black and 
make hideous noises because he died. If he 
had to die that way, he would rather the stork 
had never brought him at all. He made up his 
mind he would die as a patriot flghting the 
Sacsanaigh, or be a flsherman and get drowned. 
Then he thought of the death angel taking his 

e 


THE GREAT UNKNOWN 

mother’s soul to a place called Purgatory, to 
be burned for a long time before it was taken 
to Heaven, where every one was perfectly 
happy. This was what happened to every- 
body’s soul. Tired out at last with these 
thoughts, Michael lay down and fell asleep 
with that awful crying in his ears, and pres- 
ently he had a vivid impression that he was in 
his mother’s room, and three women all in 
black were hidden behind the curtain, and 
were peering out at him, craning long black 
necks and showing the whites of eyes that 
stared unbearably out of black faces. He 
screamed, and when his father came in, kept 
repeating something, over and over, about the 
three black friends behind the curtain, and 
could not be persuaded that it was a dream. 
His father stayed with him and soothed him, 
and presently Michael told him what his aunts 
had said about the death angel taking away 
his mother’s soul to Purgatory. His father 
was silent for a moment, then he said: — 
“Michael, your aunts know no more about it 
than you do yourself.” 

1 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


‘‘But they saw the death angel come!” said 
Michael, his voice soft and hushed with awe. 

“They didn’t, see it — ^nobody ever does, and 
nobody knows where it takes people’s souls. 
But I think — ^when a woman has been as good 
as your mother was, Michael — that she may 
surely be taken straight to Heaven.” His 
father’s voice was choked with tears. 

“Is Heaven a happier place than the world?” 
asked Michael. 

“Ever so much,” his father replied decidedly. 

Michael lay silently thinking for a long time 
after that. He could not imagine how Heaven 
could possibly he a much happier place than 
the world. He concluded at last that it might 
be, if the big golden sounds went on all the 
time there and never stopped. The big golden 
sounds were the music of his father’s harp. 

Next morning the house was all darkened, 
and at breakfast Michael heard the favourite 
horse whinnying outside the shutters; his place 
at the table was right in front of the window, 
and this horse had been accustomed to poke 
his head in and be fed generously with morsels 
8 


THE GREAT UNKNOWN 


from Michael’s own breakfast. But nothing 
happened in the natural way this morning. 
An aunt with tousled hair and red, tear-swollen 
face sat in his mother’s place, and this sight, 
together with the general atmosphere of tears, 
and the darkness of the room, made it impos- 
sible for him to eat his breakfast. 

It was this same aunt who gave Michael his 
first pang of real grief. He came into the 
kitchen and found her there, with his mother’s 
pink apron on. He burst into the first actual 
tears he had shed, rushed outside, and stood 
sobbing there. His aunt came out to com- 
fort him, but he ran away from her. He 
could not bear to be cuddled up to that apron, 
now. He felt as if she had hurt him all 
through, and he could not bear to be touched 
by her. 

All day he wandered about alone, wet re- 
peatedly by soft bursts of rain and warmed by 
the fleeting sunshine. The crowds of people 
in black went away in a procession, his father 
among them, and Michael thought with relief 
that this awful blackness had passed off for 
9 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


good, and things would go on in the natural 
happy way again. But he didn’t feel like go- 
ing back to his accustomed plays just yet; his 
mind was too full of wonder. The mystery of 
the death angel filled it. He couldn’t help 
thinking he could have driven the death angel 
away if he had been there. He would just 
have fought and fought till it had to fly away. 
That wouldn’t be any harder than killing a 
lion. And yet, all his aunts were there, and 
they couldn’t drive it away — they couldn’t even 
see it. 

Then, as the sun was getting low and mak- 
ing the grass look golden, and it was beginning 
to occur to Michael with all the old delight 
that he might find a fairy any moment, the 
black procession came back. The aunt who 
had worn his mother’s apron called him in, and 
washed him and dressed him in clean, dry 
clothes, and brought him into the dining room, 
where all the people in black were assembled. 
They were done crying now. They ate and 
ate and ate, till Michael was so tired he thought 
10 


THE GREAT UNKNOWN 


he couldnH sit still and be good any longer. 
But every time he kicked and wriggled he was 
sternly hushed by his aunts. He looked for 
the three black friends, but could not see them. 
He wondered if they were still in his mother’s 
room, hiding behind the curtain, waiting for 
him to come in, that they might crane their 
awful necks, and peer at him. He wouldn’t 
go, he resolved defiantly. 

The chair grew harder and harder, the sight 
of this solemn continuous eating more intoler- 
able, and he squirmed and fumed in spite of all 
his aunts’ dark looks and whispers. At last 
his father, who did not go on eating like the 
rest, sat back in his chair and called to him. 
Michael ran to him gladly, chmbed on his knee 
and fell asleep in five minutes. 

Fortunately there was soon great fun, to 
bury, though not to efface, the memory of this 
black time. Michael learned that he and his 
father were going away across the sea in 
a ship, to a new country, where they were to 
live all by themselves. The horse who poked 
11 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


his head in the window was coming with them, 
also the harp, and a few books, but nothing 
else. 

“I’m so glad we’re going away from this 
house!” cried Michael. “We’ll leave the three 
black friends behind, and they’ll crane and 
crane their necks” (he did his best to illustrate 
their eerie motion) “and keep peeping out for 
me, and I won’t be here!” Michael’s sweet 
voice was full of gleeful, mischievous triumph, 
and he danced for joy. 

There were days of fun after that, when 
all sorts of delightful things were rummaged 
out of dark corners. There were two great 
wreaths of paper roses, one white and one red, 
which Michael went about holding up on a level 
with his head, imagining that they fitted it, 
although they were as big as cart-wheels. But 
they finally had to be burned, although his 
father felt very bad about doing it. A whole 
lot of things were burned^ — things just as curi- 
ous, as richly suggestive of delightful plays, 
and many of them as deeply regretted by his 
father, as these paper wreaths; and men came 
12 


THE GREAT UNKNOWN 


and took away waggon loads of other things. 

At last the morning came when he and his 
father took their departure, leaving the three 
black friends in possession, as Michael firmly 
believed, in spite of all his father could say. 
He had to say good-bye to his grandmother 
and grandfather and all his aunts, and when 
he was finally released from their kisses and 
tears and hot smothering embraces, he stood 
in the fresh windy roadway and pranced till 
his clean hoots and stockings were all splashed 
with mud, and indulged in shout after shout of 
joy. He got on to the train with eyes and 
ears wide open for wonders, but encountered 
nothing more remarkable than an old couple 
who were in the compartment he and his father 
entered. He speedily poured forth to them 
the story of the three black friends and their 
consequent departure for a strange country — 
a tale which his father found it necessary to 
supplement by an explanation that the three 
black friends were not actual flesh and blood 
usurpers. As the old lady, won by the shivery 
charm of the manner in which he reproduced 
13 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

the looks and ways of those remarkable beings, 
gave him a huge, gaily striped bull’s-eye, he 
took no further part in the conversation for 
some time. He received it with an apprecia- 
tive smile, and the remark: — “Oh, I’m so glad 
it’s a good hard one! It’ll last,” and devoted 
himself to enjoyment of it for some time to 
come. When he once more became conversa- 
tionally inchned, he gave them a description 
of “the beautiful crowns made of roses,” which • 
he “wore for a long time, but father had to 
bum them. He didn’t want to, but he said 
we couldn’t take anything with us, because we 
might have to build our own house and things 
would get rained on. Besides, lions might 
come and steal them. I’m so glad we’re going 
away, where we’ll find lions and all sorts of 
things we can’t find at home, but no matter 
how nice it is, I’m going to come back to Ire- 
land when I’m grown up and be a patriot. 
F ather’s a patriot, but he is a kind that doesn’t 
have to fight. Of course he would if he had a 
chance, but he hasn’t had a chance yet. I want 
to have a chance to fight,” said Michael, his 
14 


THE GREAT UNKNOWN 


great luminous eyes shining with ardent long- 
ing. ‘T want to kill a whole lot of Sacsanaigh, 
and then get killed myself, because if I’m 
killed fighting, people won’t cry about me, and 
turn all black and horrid, the way they do when 
a person just dies.” 

The old couple expressed their dehght at 
these sentiments in the warmest manner, and 
showered a hundred thousand blessings on his 
brave enterprise. This was naturally stimu- 
lating to Michael, but as the day wore on even 
his lively little tongue began to weary. He 
got hot, and so tired of sitting in this dull close 
place, with no fun going on. The interest of 
the old couple began to languish, and presently 
they fell asleep, and their mouths opened, and 
they looked ugly and stupid. His father fell 
asleep, too, after forbidding him to indulge in 
any more of the bull’s-eye. Michael sat hold- 
ing this one remaining source of pleasure in 
his hands, his whole little being one ache of 
longing for another delicious taste; but his 
sense of honour was strong enough to with- 
stand the temptation. He would not disobey 
15 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


while his father was asleep. The tedium was 
such an acute pain as only an eager-hearted 
child, condemned to hours of inaction, can 
know. If only his father would waken, so that 
he could ask when they were going to get to 
the sea, and get on the ship! But his father 
continued to sleep; and finally awoke, to find 
Michael asleep against his shoulder. 

He had an impression of arriving in a noisy 
place, full of shouting, and men, and lights, 
although it wasn’t indoors, and asking if they 
had got to the sea yet. His father said: — 
“This is Cork, and we’ll get on board to-mor- 
row.” He was so sleepy he could hardly stand 
up, but his father held him and made him walk 
somehow, and they came to a house with stairs 
in it= — something Michael had never been in 
before. He had to chmb the stairs, sleepily 
conscious that this was being brave, and his 
father would not let him fall, and he was put 
to bed at the top of the stairs. 

Michael had forgotten all the solemn 
thoughts he had had lately in the excitement of 
taking breakfast at a long table full of strange 
16 


THE GREAT UNKNOWN 


people next morning, of demanding: — 
‘‘Where are the grandmother and grandfather 
who gave me the bulFs-eye yesterday?” and of 
starting off to the ship with his father, when a 
picture in a shop window caught his eye, and 
he stopped short, pulling so hard at his 
father’s hand that he had to stop too. 

“Father, there’s a picture of an angel!” he 
exclaimed in a tone of awe. “Is it the death 
angel?” 

His father stood looking at it long and si- 
lently, in such a way that Michael did not re- 
peat his question, for he knew it was the death 
angel. Great and soft, slow and inexorable, 
it crept up the steps and in at the door. A 
little boy like himself, only with no clothes on, 
and with wings, was trying his very best to 
fight it away — just as he had wanted to do. 
But the death angel, with bowed head, as if 
it did not want to see the struggles of that lit- 
tle boy, was pushing him back with its hand — 
not in a way that could hurt at all, but in a 
way you couldn’t fight against. And the little 
boy was not even an ordinary httle boy — ^he 
17 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


had wings, so he must be a sort of angel, or 
fairy, or something like that that could do 
wonderful things a person couldn’t do. But 
he couldn’t keep away the death angel. Mi- 
chael was as silent and grave, if not as sorrow- 
ful, as his father when they finally went on 
down the street. All the excitement of going 
to the ship had been momentarily hushed out 
of him. He understood, now, that nobody 
could ever drive away the death angel. 


18 


CHAPTER II 


THE NEW COUNTRY 

Michael never forgot his sensations when he 
first saw the ship. He had imagined a dirty, 
oily sail-boat, delightfully slippery and redo- 
lent of fish, like those in which many of 
his neighbours went out and sometimes got 
drowned, and he had imagined that he and his 
father would cross the great ocean all alone in 
such a craft, and that he would help to sail it 
• — a thing he had always longed so to do ! And 
instead, he saw standing still and majestic at 
the dock, shining blue and white in a sudden 
bright burst of sunshine, the grandest thing 
he had ever beheld in his life. He caught his 
breath in wonder and awe. It was so big, so 
still, so beautiful! 

“Oh!’’ he exclaimed to his father. “Is that 
the ship? Are we going to get on that?” 

They went up a long plank and on to the 
19 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


great thing, and Michael stood motionless 
there, his eyes upturned and dilated, for a long 
time before he moved or spoke. Then he ex- 
claimed: — ‘T don’t feel any water under it!” 
That continuous soft, swaying, quivering mo- 
tion — the greatest charm of the anchored fish- 
ing boats into which he had sometimes been al- 
lowed to climb^ — was missing; but after there 
had been a great deal of noise, and people go- 
ing about in a hurry and pushing him out of 
the way as he stood gazing around him, and 
trunks and bundles slammed down on the deck 
(the harp, all tied up in sacking, was among 
them, and the big golden sounds boomed forth 
as it was set down) the land began to steal 
away, softly, over the sunlit waters. Michael 
gazed at it in speechless wonder. It went 
farther and farther, in that slow, mysterious 
manner, till at last the dock they had left to get 
on the ship was barely distinguishable. At 
last Michael asked his father: — ‘‘Why is the 
land going away from us?” 

His father could not convince him, for 
some time, that it was really the ship that was 
20 


THE NEW COUNTRY 

leaving the land behind. When he realized at 
last that they were moving over the sea, leav- 
ing all the old familiar things behind, going 
forth to meet unknown wonders, he was swal- 
lowed up into a trance of pure happiness. He 
stood leaning against the railing, gazing down 
at the green quivering waters far below, and 
did not move or speak for a long time. But 
he was lively enough after that first day. He 
soon awakened to the fact that there were a 
whole lot of other little boys and girls on board 
to play with, and he lost no time in making 
their acquaintance. Then, he and his father 
went down to a dark place at the bottom of 
the ship, every day, to see poor Fionn, the pet 
horse. It was so dark, Michael could just 
barely see the familiar old head reaching out 
towards him, with its long fiexible nose 
stretched forth for tidbits. It made him very 
unhappy to see Fionn, and all those other 
horses, shut up down there. Sometimes he 
thought about it after he went to bed at night, 
and burst out crying; sometimes he thought 
about it when he was in the middle of a par- 
21 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


ticularly nice dinner, and then the dinner didn’t 
seem nice any more, and he couldn’t finish it. 

After they landed in the new country they 
had another wearisome journey on the train, 
but at last they got to a city where they spent 
a day buying things. Then they got on the 
train again, and got oflf at a station with the 
river on one side, and a great many piles of 
wood on the other. Fionn was to come on a 
freight train, but he would not be there till 
late in the afternoon. Michael and his father 
went to a place that was full of fine new wag- 
gons, and his father bought a beauty, painted 
red and green, over which Michael went wild 
with delight. Fionn was to be harnessed to 
it as soon as he came, and they were to drive 
to their new home, miles up the river. Mi- 
chael awaited Fionn’s arrival with the utmost 
impatience. He wanted to be sitting beside 
his father on the high seat of that alluring new 
vehicle, with its great red wheels. When 
Fionn was at last unloaded he was very frisky, 
and pranced all the way to the waggon shop. 
He stamped and tossed his head all the 
22 


THE NEW COUNTRY 

time he was being harnessed, and the man 
in the shop had to hold him while Michael 
was being lifted into the seat, and his 
father climbed in and took the reins. Then 
Fionn dashed off down the street with them, 
the empty waggon rumbling in the grandest 
way, while Michael jumped up and down in 
the seat with delight at this wild ride. They 
came once more to the station, and there Mi- 
chael watched the fascinating process of load- 
ing the waggon. The tent they were to live 
in while they built their house, the harp, the 
parcels they had got in the city, and, last and 
best, a lot of delightful paper bags, full of 
good things to eat, were loaded in; then they 
were off along the road beside the river, Mi- 
chael beaming with joy. They were actually 
driving in their own new waggon, through the 
new country, where the next step might land 
them into the midst of unheard-of wonders. 
This expectation lent an inexpressible charm 
to the clear-hued, bright new country. It was 
new and unknown, consequently wonderful. 
Everything about it was wonderful, and the 
23 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


life they lived in it could not fail to be wonder- 
ful. This was surely enough to fill Michael 
with a bliss too pure for words to utter, which 
could only be expressed in his smile. 

The sun was setting when they came to a 
broad green hill. They drove past a little 
house that nestled at its foot, and up to a great 
wild slope of unbroken meadow, full of little 
bushes and long grass and flowers. Here 
Fionn was stopped, and Michael’s father lifted 
him down, saying: — “This is our land.” 
Michael’s first impulse was to race as fast as 
he could go through that long grass, and 
he ran uphill till he couldn’t run any more, 
and had to flop down on the ground. Then 
he started to run downhill, and ran faster and 
faster till he could hardly stop himself, and 
then his father’s operations became so interest- 
ing that he had to devote all his energies to 
watching them. The pitching of the tent was 
particularly absorbing, and when it was up 
Michael thought it the most charming abode 
any heart could desire. He ran in and out 
the door, he crawled in and out underneath, 
24 


THE NEW COUNTRY 


he rolled about in the sweet fresh grass that 
was to be their floor. When his father un- 
packed two cot beds and put them up, he ex- 
claimed: — “Why have we got to sleep in beds? 
It would be so nice just to make nests for our- 
selves in the grass !” 

But the most joyful time of all was when 
his father made a fire, and took good things 
to eat out of those alluring paper bags and 
cooked them. Michael had been looking and 
sniffing longingly at those paper bags for some 
time, and he enjoyed their contents with an 
intensity that would have caused absolute 
silence, and grim devotion to business, in 
another boy; but in him the need for self-ex- 
pression was even more imperative than hun- 
ger, so he was not too busy to exclaim at in- 
tervals all through the meal: — “This is the 
best tea I ever had!” It was so good, that 
it was the hardest work to spare even the tiniest 
morsels for Fionn, whose share of good things 
from Michael’s plate was generally so liberal. 

He found the new country no less delight- 
ful in the succeeding weeks and months than 
25 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

on that first joyful day. There was so 
much sunshine, that it sometimes made him 
almost tired being happy. There was the 
great river to play beside, and when he once 
got down close to the water he never wanted 
to go away again. But his father did not like 
him to go alone, and he never could stay half 
as long as Michael would have hked. He was 
always saying — “Come along now, old man, 
we must get to work at our house again.” Mi- 
chael never could object very strongly to this, 
building the house was such fun. He helped 
his father a great deal with it. When Fionn 
was harnessed to a great big turtle, (this was 
the scraper) which dug out the place for the 
cellar, Michael took the reins and put one hand 
on each of the great wooden handles, and drove. 
There was no such proud delight as this — to 
feel the warm thrill from that great strong 
body come down the reins to his hands, and 
to feel that he had it in his power! Besides 
this, he did a lot of sawing, and that was hard 
work, for the saw would wobble and go all 
crooked. He seized the plane every time his 
26 


THE NEW COUNTRY 

father laid it down, tied a string around it, 
and dragged it all over the place, declaring it 
was his pet swan. He made a sphynx out 
of the mortar left over from the chimney. 
His father had said there was only one sphynx 
in the world, and Michael was immediately 
fired with an ambition to make another, and 
announced triumphantly, when it was com- 
pleted, that there were two sphynxes now! 
But the glory of this achievement was soon 
cast into the shade by another, still more help- 
ful to his father and the progress of the new 
house. When his father began to make fires 
in the yard and melt tar, he could not keep 
away from the black, sticky, delightful stuff, 
and one day his father was short-sighted 
enough to leave him alone in the yard with a 
big pot of it for three minutes. A great deal 
can sometimes happen in three minutes, as Mi- 
chael’s father was fully convinced after that 
day. He came back to find Michael very 
happy, very proud of himself, and so gleeful 
over the impression his personal appearance 
made on his father, that the latter wondered, 
27 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


for one brief moment, if his character were 
not in keeping with his present outer hue. 
Just why this exploit gave him such mad joy 
at the time, was remembered and caressed and 
gloated over with such delicious satisfaction, 
and the marks of it, which wore off with a 
gratifying slowness, cherished as if they had 
been the Victoria Cross, would be difficult even 
for Michael himself to explain. Perhaps if he 
had not been blessed with a father who had a 
sense of humour and a tender heart, the ex- 
perience might not have been so pleasing. 

His father was always doing interesting 
things. One day he took a great big long chain, 
for which Michael thought the only right use 
was to catch elephants and chain them up 
to tame them; but it was merely used for 
measuring land. Michael felt disappointed 
that a chain so admirably adapted to a no- 
ble use should be thrown away on a piece of 
work so much less important. There was a 
fascination about the ploughing and the har- 
rowing and the sowing of seed, and with life 
so full of interest, it never occurred to Mi- 
28 


THE NEW COUNTRY 


chael to wish that he had some other children 
to play with. But one morning when he was 
at work at the sphynx, he was startled by 
another httle boy’s voice — a slow and careful 
voice, as if talking was hard work — that 
said: — ‘‘I sawed you here, and I am glad there 
is a little boy for me to play with. I have no 
hoy to play with, and I came over here to play 
with you.” 

Michael looked up, and saw a little boy just 
his own size standing looking at him. 

‘T can’t play just now,” he replied with 
dignity. “I’m making a tos-phynx.” 

The little boy stared at him and the sphynx 
in silence for a while, and then, concluding 
that this performance was too bewildering for 
him to puzzle his matter-of-fact head about, 
brought the conversation down to the simplest 
commonplaces by the announcement: — “I am 
Nieder.” 

“I’m Michael,” was the reply. “Father 
brought me out to the new country after 
mother died and the three black friends came 
to live in the house. It’s so nice to live in the 
29 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

new country! Have you seen any lions yet, 
Nieder?’’ 

“No.” 

“Have you seen any elephants?” 

“No.” 

“Tell me as soon as you see any, because 
father has a chain he could catch them with.” 

“Why do you not go to the circus, if you 
want lions and elephants to see?” 

“Because I want to see wild ones, that I can 
catch!” cried Michael. “There must be lots 
around here. Did you always live here?” 

“No. My mother and my father bringed 
me here since spring.” 

“Did you come from Ireland?” 

“No. I corned from Deutschland. Will 
you be ready soon to play?” 

“I haven’t finished the Am-phynx yet,” said 
Michael. 

“I want to run a race,” said Nieder. 

The slope of meadow was very inviting, and 
it was a long time since Michael had had a 
little boy to race with. “I can finish it after 
dinner,” he said, and darted off, Nieder after 
30 


THE NEW COUNTRY 


him. Michael thus had a playmate added to 
his other new joys; and although Nieder con- 
tinued to maintain a stolid stupidity on the 
subjects of sphynxes, lions and elephants, Mi- 
chael scarcely felt that lack in a boy who was 
so splendid for races and see-saw and every 
kind of active play. 


3X 


CHAPTER III 

THE rebel’s house 

One day Michael and Nieder were playing in 
the middle of the road that ran downhill. On 
the other side of the road there was a fence, 
and a big field, and away across that field there 
was a group of trees with a house showing 
among them. 

‘T wonder if it gives any little boys and 
girls in that house,” said Nieder, who had not 
yet learned English idioms. ‘T would be glad, 
if it gived many of us.” 

‘T think two of us are enough,” said Mi- 
chael. ‘Tf we knew the httle boys and girls 
in that house, perhaps we wouldn’t like them. 
Perhaps we would quarrel with them, and that 
would spoil our play.” 

‘Tf we go in there we might find them,” 
said Nieder, ignoring these speculations. 

‘T don’t want to go in there. I want to see 
32 


THE REBEL’S HOUSE 


where the road leads to uphill. There’s no 
knowing where it goes! Just think, perhaps 
we might find lions and elephants!” 

‘T want to find other little boys and girls. 
I finded you in that place, and we might find 
other little boys in that one,” said Nieder, 
pointing alternately to the two fields on the 
opposite sides of the road. 

Michael had tact enough to reply 
might find a house at the top of the hill, with 
more little boys and girls in it than there are 
in that one. If there were any in that one, we 
would see them playing in the field.” 

This seemed to Nieder a reasonable argu- 
ment, and he followed Michael silently uphill. 
The road became more enticing and mysterious 
the farther they went. The dusty part got 
narrower and narrower, till at last there wasn’t 
any at all, and it became what Michael called 
“a woods of yellow flowers, bigger than us.” 
They became so thick that the boys could see 
nothing ahead of them, except gleams of sun- 
shine through the great rank stalks. They 
might find anything here — any minute! Nie- 
33 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


der broke in on Michael’s delicious rapture 
with the remark: — “This is not a road. We 
will not find a house here.” 

“But we might find anyihingf cried Mi- 
chael, in a tone of such hopeful excitement that 
Nieder followed on. At last they came to an 
old gate, with golden-green moss all over the 
grey bars, and warm with the sunshine. Mi- 
chael leaned his cheek against it, feeling per- 
fectly happy, and forgetting for the moment 
that he had wanted to go any farther, but Nie- 
der again recalled him to practical considera- 
tions by the remark: — “Here gives it a hole, 
where a dog gets in and out.” 

There was a hole under the gate, where the 
earth was worn quite smooth, and Michael was 
quick to discover that it was just the right 
size for him and Nieder to wriggle under. On 
the other side they found the same wilderness, 
diversified by monster pigweeds, one of which 
Michael vainly endeavoured to pull up in order 
to show Nieder the pretty pink root. Sud- 
denly they found themselves in front of a 
house. It had a big veranda, all grey and 
34 


THE REBEL’S HOUSE 


moss-covered like the gate; a grapevine ran 
up one post and over a great deal of the floor: 
the tall yellow flowers almost obscured the sag- 
ging steps. 

“No little boys and girls hve here,” said 
Nieder in a tone of disgust. 

“Oh, we’ll find grand things in here!” cried 
Michael, running eagerly up the steps. Nie- 
der followed slowly, and turned aside to in- 
vestigate the grape vine. Michael slipped in 
the great door, which stood ajar, and then 
paused, gazing around at the hall, with its 
smooth, dark floor, its wide, majestic staircase, 
and the window at the head. He was drink- 
ing in the vast silence, and in another moment 
his imagination would have been hard at work; 
but Nieder came in, saying: — “The grapes are 
little and green, and I cannot eat them!” 

Just then they heard a sound upstairs, like 
some one crying. It echoed strangely through 
the empty rooms. 

“I want to go home,” Nieder exclaimed sud- 
denly. 

“Are you afraid?” demanded Michael, in 

35 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


such a tone that Nieder hastily answered; — 
“No!” in his roundest manner. 

“Then come on,” said Michael, and started 
upstairs. Nieder made a great noise stamp- 
ing his feet as he followed. This served the 
double purpose of impressing Michael favour- 
ably with his courage, and drowning out his 
own fears. Nieder always felt better when he 
was making a noise. 

The crying stopped, and suddenly a little 
girl appeared at the head of the stairs. 

“Oh!” she cried rapturously when she saw 
them. “Where did you come from?” 

“Home,” was Nieder’s concise but indefinite 
reply. 

“Do you five all alone here, like a fairy?” 
cried Michael. 

“No, I’m only Susan. I come here when 
I’m lonely, and I was crying because I have 
nobody to play with. I have been with my 
cousins in town all summer; mother was sick, 
and she’s not well enough to be company for 
me yet. She goes to sleep such a lot! I was 
so lonely for my cousins, and so I came up 
36 


THE REBEL’S HOUSE 


here, and I cried because I have nobody to play 
with!” 

“We’ll all play here,” said Michael, and went 
through an open door beside them. It led into 
a wide bare room, that felt grand and solemn. 
The sunshine streamed in through the great 
low window. 

“There is a king standing in the middle of 
this room,” Michael said in a soft, hushed 
voice. 

“No,” replied Nieder solemnly. “There is 
no king here.” 

“But I see his golden crown. Oh, it is such 
a beautiful golden! Susan, don’t you see it?” 

“Where is it?” demanded Susan eagerly. 

“On his head, of course.” 

“But where is his head? I can’t see it! I’d 
love to see a golden crown!” 

“He is not here,” Nieder repeated. 

“I want to see that crown! Tell me where 
it is,” begged Susan. 

“He is standing in the middle of the room, 
and his head reaches up as far as the top of 
that window, so his crown is up there.” 

37 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


Susan gazed fixedly, with wide eyes, at the 
point Michael indicated, but at last she said 
in a tone of the most sorrowful disappoint- 
ment: — “I ca'nft see it!” 

‘T want to go into the other rooms,” said 
Michael. 

‘‘They’re all alike,” said Susan. “They’re 
all empty, and they make me so lonely!” 

But Michael ran into another room, and 
suddenly stopped short, exclaiming:— “Oh! 
There’s a beautiful peacock stork!” 

“Where? What’s a peacock stork?” in- 
quired Susan. 

“It’s like a peacock” (Michael had been 
deeply impressed by a peacock in the hold of 
the ship coming over). “Only it has a white 
spot in the middle of its back, and instead of 
having common looking wings, like a grey hen, 
they’re red and golden. He’s flying across 
the room now!” 

“Let us play tag,” said Nieder. 

They had not been long at this game, before 
Michael discovered a green dog who raced 
around with them everywhere. This creature 
38 


THE REBEL’S HOUSE 


joined in all their plays that day, and even 
Nieder had to reckon with him, puzzled and 
ill-pleased as he was by his presence. Michael 
had found a new joy, and one which was to be 
his greatest delight for years to come. The 
empty house had suddenly roused an imagina- 
tion which had only been awaiting some such 
stimulus to put forth its full strength. It 
never was an empty house again. He could 
scarcely keep away from those bare, echoing, 
solemn rooms, that were peopled with such 
bright and delightful beings. He said as soon 
as he met his two playmates every morning: — 
“Let us go up to the Rebel’s House!” This 
was what Susan called it. She said her father 
had told her it once belonged to a measly 
wretch of a rebel (Michael, with fiery eyes, cor- 
rected this epithet. He told her she should 
say patriot, and patriots were always brave 
men) but that he had been taken prisoner and 
all his things were taken away from him, and 
so the house had been empty ever since. 

Susan was always very ready to act on Mi- 
chael’s suggestion of repairing to the Rebel’s 
39 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


House, for it fascinated her too — and she 
always had a hope of being able to see the 
king’s golden crown, or the wonderful peacock 
stork. The peacock stork’s name was Shy- 
lince, and he was always flying from one room 
to another, with Michael in pursuit, coaxing 
him to come and be fed. Nieder could not 
endure Shylince. He could tolerate Duke- 
land, the green dog, for the latter was often 
the centre of exciting plays, although it did 
make him cross to have to play with a thing 
that wasn’t there at all. But one day when 
Michael started on his pursuit of Shylince, he 
lost his temper completely. 

“It gives no Shylince!” he asserted passion- 
ately. “No bird is in this house.” 

“But I’m playing there is a Shylince!” pro- 
tested Michael. 

“What for do you play with things that are 
not here?” 

“He is here!” 

“I will go home, if you play with him!” 

Michael yielded for the present, resolving 
to linger after Nieder and Susan left, and en- 
40 


THE REBEL’S HOUSE 


joy Shylince in peace. The sun had gone 
down when they left; there was a cold, grey 
light in the room where he stood, looking at 
Shylince. The latter, who was becoming tame, 
was standing before him on the floor. He was 
so distinct, in all his beautiful colours, even to 
the little white spot on his back. But Nieder’s 
words came back to Michael, making him feel 
as if he could never like anything again^ — as 
if all the sweet familiar joys of his life were 
hitting him in some tender place and making 
him want to cry. It would be so sad, so dread- 
ful, if Nieder should happen to be right — and 
there really wasn’t any Shylince! But Shy- 
lince still stood there, beautiful and bright, and 
as Michael stood contemplating him those 
doubts gradually passed away — and never 
came back, in spite of Nieder ’s continued de- 
nials. 


41 


CHAPTER IV 

THE PRISONER IN THE BARN 

It was a fall morning. The sky was clean, 
the ground was clean, and the grey empty air 
was so inviting, that each of the three play- 
mates was exclaiming, before breakfast was 
over:^ — ‘T want to get out!” 

It was just the kind of day on which to 
carry out a stern purpose, and Michael and 
Susan and Nieder had decided, the afternoon 
before, that something very stern had to be 
done to-day. The fact of the matter was, a 
wicked man had been hanging about the 
Rebel’s House lately. Dukeland always 
frightened away anybody who had a loud voice, 
but unfortunately the wicked man hadn’t a 
loud voice, so Dukeland could not be persuaded 
to attack him. He always whispered. It 
wasn’t a nice whisper, Michael said — it was a 
42 


THE PRISONER IN THE BARN 


dusty whisper. He was convinced that if He 
could only make this person yell, Dukeland 
would frighten him away — but no matter what 
he did, he never could make him yell. 

Nieder looked with comparative favour on 
the wicked man, because he was exciting. 
Plays with him, as with Dukeland, involved 
running and shouting, so Nieder was willing to 
overlook his exasperating lack of substance. 

It had never occurred to them to make a 
prisoner of this objectionable person till the 
day before, when they had an hospital in the 
Rebel’s House. The hospital consisted of a 
row of corn-cobs on the old sofa, and a pot of 
muddy water at one end. This was soup, and 
after Michael and Nieder, who were the doc^ 
tors, had given all the patients the same kind 
of medicine, (it would have looked like red 
paint to an observer) Susan gave them each a 
spoonful of soup. Then she covered the pot, 
and they went home to dinner. Michael 
stayed behind for a few minutes. 

When they came back in the afternoon the 
soup was gone, nothing being left but a little 
43 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


sand in the bottom of the pot. Only one thing 
could possibly have happened — the wicked man 
must have drunk up all that soup ! 

Michael had a strange impression that he 
had tipped the pot over after the others had 
departed, but of course that was only an illu- 
sion, like the sun going round the earth, or 
the trees sticking up into the sky. What had 
really happened was that the wicked man had 
come in and stolen the soup. 

They were unanimous in their decision that 
after such an outrageous theft the wicked man 
must not be allowed to go about loose any 
longer. They must come to-morrow, what- 
ever happened, and take him prisoner. 

Michael promised that he would bring heavy 
chains, and big iron things to go round his 
feet, and big iron things to go round his hands. 

“Where will you get them?” asked Nieder. 

“I’ll find them,” said Michael. 

“Will you be able to see them?” asked Susan. 

“I don’t know,” said Michael. “They’ll be 
so heavy to carry, perhaps I won’t.” 

Naturally the three playmates were eager to 
44 


THE PRISONER IN THE BARN 

meet next morning, but Susan’s father had to 
go to town, and her mother was nervous and 
could not stand being left alone, so Susan, with 
a doleful face, but a sweet dignity becoming 
to a martyr, told Michael that the capture of 
the wicked man must be put off till the after- 
noon. In the afternoon they all met on the 
road, and Michael had his arms stretched 
straight out in front of him. 

‘T’ve got the chains on my shoulders,” he 
explained, “and the iron things are on my 
arms. They’re very heavy.” 

“Will he kick and fight and try to get away 
like that great big rooster I caught?” inquired 
Susan. 

“You bet,” said Nieder, who was learning 
English expressions fast. 

“He won’t fight after he gets those on,” 
said Michael. 

“Won’t he? Wouldn’t you fight if any one 
put things hke those on you?” asked Susan. 

“No. I’d kill him first.” 

“Would you kill him if he was a good man 
and you were a bad man?” 

45 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

‘T would.” 

“But if he got them on before you could kill 
him, wouldn’t you fight?” 

“No, I wouldn’t fight after that.” 

“Then we will be able to have the procession 
with him to the barn all right,” said Susan. 

The hunt for the wicked man was most ex- 
citing, Michael, of course, was the one who 
discovered him. “He’s lying on the roof of- 
the root-house,” he told the others. “Don’t 
you see him, eating hot biscuits as fast as he 
can? He must have stolen those. Did your 
mother bake biscuits this morning, Nieder?” 

“She baked some yesterday, but we ate them 
all,” said Nieder. 

“Then he must have stolen those from some 
one living in the woods. I had no idea his 
mouth was so big. Why, that’s almost a 
whole one he has just put in! Oh, he sees 
us! You run around behind the root-house, 
and head him off if he tries to get away, and 
I’ll face him.” 

There was a fierce struggle, and Michael 
was the one who fought most strenuously. He 
46 


THE PRISONER IN THE BARN 


suddenly threw himself on one knee and looked 
around at Nieder. 

“You get those iron things, Nieder,” he said. 
“He’s down now. My knee’s on his bread- 
basket.” 

“Did you leave them here?” asked Nieder. 

“No, they’re over there on that pile of 
stones.” 

Nieder brought them. 

“Susan, come and help Nieder hold him,” 
said Michael. “I’ll have to go and find a 
store, and buy a striped suit to put on him. 
Prisoners can’t have clothes like other people.” 

“There isn’t any store around here,” said 
Nieder. 

“I’ll find one in the woods,” said Michael, 
and ran off towards the stump fence that 
separated the woods from the old place. 

“If you see any groundhogs under that 
fence, whistle for me,” Nieder called after 
him. 

“Stay where you are,” said Michael per- 
emptorily. “I don’t care if there are a thou- 
sand groundhogs and a milhon of those duck- 
47 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


bill things, or even if I see a zebra, I won’t 
have you let that man go after the fight we had 
getting him.” 

“But Susan could hold him, and she doesn’t 
want groundhogs,” said Nieder. Michael 
made no answer, but ran off, and had wriggled 
through into the woods before Nieder could 
represent to him the tedium of holding an im- 
aginary man while there were real groundhogs 
hiding under the stump fence. He didn’t care 
if it was only the duckbill things and the zebra, 
but he did want to hunt a groundhog. 

“Put those iron things on him,” Michael 
called from the other side of the fence. 

Nieder had actually forgotten the iron 
things, but he made haste to put them on, 
although it was hard to tell where the culprit’s 
arms and legs were. Michael was back by the 
time this performance was over. 

“I got the suit,” he said. 

“What does it look like?” asked Susan. 

“It is striped grey and white, and it is rather 
loose, because the man asked what size, and I 
said I didn’t know, but I said the man was 
48 


THE PRISONER IN THE BARN 


thin and slouched, and so he gave me a humpy 
sort of one.” 

“Will we be able to have the procession 
now?” asked Susan. 

“Yes,” said Michael. “Make him go in 
front of you, Nieder. You go next, Susan, 
and I’ll carry the clothes.” 

When they got the prisoner to the barn they 
put the suit on him. It seemed to Susan and 
Nieder that they were merely making gestures, 
but Michael was conscious that he was drag- 
ging the clothes over limp arms and legs. 
After that was done they realized it was tea- 
time, and started home in a great hurry. Su- 
san was the first one to say good night. She 
climbed the fence and ran home across the 
fields. Michael and Nieder ran on down the 
road till Michael came to his father’s gate, 
when he said good night and went in. It was 
very comfortable to be there, going across the 
wide bare field to the new house, which had 
been finished last Saturday. Michael was 
convinced that there never would be another 
day so happy as last Saturday. They had 
49 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

spent it gathering up shavings, and they had 
made the first fire in their fireplace. Michael’s 
only regret was that it could not happen again. 
Of course Saturday would keep on coming, 
but Last Saturday was gone, and could only 
be reclaimed in the useless, tantahsing form 
of a memory. However, it was still interest- 
ing and exciting, as well as comfortable, to 
be coming home to the new log house, and the 
smoke from the stone chimney convinced him 
that there would be something good and hot 
for tea. He started to run — then suddenly 
remembered the prisoner chained up in the box 
stall, with nothing to eat, and no fire to warm 
him. But then, no fire could warm any one 
so wretched as a prisoner, and it would be far 
better to eat nothing than to have your food 
brought to you under such circumstances. 
For a few minutes Michael’s hunger struggled 
with these reflections. It was so keen that it 
seemed to him he could scarcely manage to 
endure it till he got across the field to the house, 
hut all this time the prisoner was too unhappy 
to be hungry, The sun was going severely 
§0 


THE PRISONER IN THE BARN 


down out of a grey sky, with barely an at- 
tempt at a glow, as if to emphasize this de- 
pressing fact. 

The tea was warm and delicious, but Mi- 
chael felt as cold after it as before, for the 
prisoner was sitting in the box stall with those 
iron things on him. If it had only been one 
of themselves who was the prisoner, he could 
have come home and had his tea, and that 
would have been the end of it. But instead, 
the victim was a poor unfortunate imaginary 
person, and would have to stay there all night. 
After tea he sat down by the fire to get 
warmed, but the logs were making a monoto- 
nous, joyless sound, as though they had pains^ 
somewhere inside of them. That sound seemed 
to embody the prisoner’s state of mind. He 
got up and began to look around for shavings. 
They were the most delightful things to find, 
although he could never discover a good enough 
use for them, any more than he could for corn 
silk. There were none to be found now, 
though; they had all been gathered up and 
burned. When his father wanted to know how 
51 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


far he could count he snatched eagerly at that 
distraction, and succeeded in counting up to a 
hundred. He was conscious that he would 
have felt very triumphant on any other eve- 
ning. 

He was still cold when he went to bed, al- 
though his father got out a quilt for him, with 
funny pink things on it, which, he decided, 
must be dogs (they were intended for morn- 
ing glories). He wondered if Dukeland 
would have driven away the man before they 
had taken him prisoner if he had been a pink 
dog instead of a green one. He wished he 
had made him do it. But then, Dukeland 
wouldn’t, as long as the man didn’t yell, and 
he never could get the man to yell. He had 
tried often enough. 

The next morning at breakfast Michael left 
what he particularly enjoyed when he was 
happy — the top part of the egg with the white 
in it. He had found out by this time that 
whatever he particularly enjoyed when he was 
happy, hurt him particularly when he was un- 
happy. He put it in his pocket and brought it 
52 


THE PRISONER IN THE BARN 

up to the old house as a treat for the invalid 
corn-cobs. He hoped he would be there before 
either of the other two, for he must let that 
prisoner out. He found nobody there, and 
made straight for the barn. The box stall was 
dark, but he felt sure he could make out a 
striped suit in one corner, and remembered 
that Nieder had said:^ — “We’ll tie him up here, 
so he can’t lie down.” He went into the cor- 
ner and took the iron things off the hands and 
feet of the prisoner, who sat quite still, and 
did not stir till Michael was done, and had 
stepped back. Then he walked straight out 
and did not look at Michael once. Michael 
followed him meekly to the door. He wished 
he had a right to expect him to be grateful for 
being set free, but he knew he hadn’t, after 
helping to capture him. He suddenly re- 
membered that Susan and Nieder would likely 
want to catch him again. He might overcome 
Susan by endowing her hospital with the 
dainty in his pocket, although he doubted 
whether that would have much weight with 
her if Nieder held out the hope of another pro- 
53 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


cession. But his perplexities vanished when 
he looked at the striped back retreating quickly 
and quietly through the weedy yard. At that 
rate the man would be well away from the hill- 
side in ten minutes, and Susan and Nieder 
might search as hard as they liked; Michael 
was satisfied they would never find him again. 


54 


CHAPTER V 

“a tumultuous privacy of storm” 

There came a day when Susan and Michael 
and Nieder could not meet. It was a blizzard, 
and the high northwest wind was likely to 
freeze tender little ears and noses with ap- 
palling rapidity, so each of the three play- 
mates was kept indoors. Michael rather en- 
joyed this; it was like Sunday. Sunday was 
the one day in the week when his father claimed 
his companionship, and in some ways Michael 
found him a much better companion than either 
Susan or Nieder. The snow thrashed against 
the paper window panes, the wind howled 
around the house, while a great fire glowed in 
the fireplace, which his father had to feed con- 
stantly. He also had to chop a plentiful 
supply of wood, and attend to the horses, but 
he found time to play a game of tag with Mi- 
55 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


chael before it was time to prepare dinner. 
iWhen he settled down to sober potato peeling, 
Michael returned to his village of chips and 
bark, which was spread out on the stone hearth. 
A short, stout, light-coloured chip was the 
Sacsanach pohceman, and a big wet piece of 
bark was the jail, under which lay several pa- 
triotic citizens who had incurred the displeasure 
of the policeman. A piece of white birch bark, 
with two big chips and some little ones under 
it, represented a home, hke Michael’s own be- 
fore his mother died and the three black friends 
took possession; a piece of grey bark covering 
a number of grey chips all as much alike as 
he could get them, was a monastery: little 
flecks of birch bark sprinkled about every- 
where were the fairies. J ust as his father had 
come in and suggested a game of tag, the 
policeman was getting the worse of a tussle 
with a remarkably vigorous patriot he had 
captured. 

When Michael returned from the game he 
found the policeman dead, to his great joy and 
exultation; the victorious patriot marched to 
56 


A PRIVACY OF STORM 

the jail and released the prisoners, and then 
there was a grand procession of all the vil- 
lagers, which extended the whole length of 
the hearth, while the dead policeman lay be- 
side his rifled jail. His father came to the 
fireplace just then to put the potatoes on the 
crane, and looked down with astonishment at 
the row of chips and Michael’s intent attitude, 
his shining eyes fixed upon them, and his cheeks 
a fiery crimson. 

“What does this mean, Michael?” he in- 
quired. 

“Patrick O’Mahony has killed the police- 
man!” cried Michael excitedly. 

“Who is Patrick O’Mahony?” 

“One of the good men the Sacsanach police- 
man was putting in jail. He was too strong 
for him, and he killed him!” 

The ring of exultation in Michael’s voice 
brought a responsive glow into his father’s 
face. “Good Patrick!” he exclaimed heartily. 

After dinner Michael got the big natural 
history book out, and looked at all the pictures, 
and wondered whether it would be more de- 
57 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

lightful to find a lion in the woods, and kill 
him before he had a chance to find Susan and 
Nieder and eat them up, or to find an elephant 
and tame him and ride on his back in that 
sort of house thing. If you could only get 
far enough into the woods, you might en- 
counter any of those wonderful creatures. Or 
a stork might come and build on your chim- 
ney; anyway, if you watched enough, you 
would be sure to see one fiying past on its way 
to somebody’s house with a baby. Nieder had 
had a stork on his chimney, over in Germany ; 
it had been very useful, for it ate up all the 
mice and rats. Michael could not extract any 
more interesting information from him than' 
that, but he was sure there were plenty of 
wonderful things to find out about storks. 
He filled in the colours of all the animals from 
his imagination — the tiger’s golden and black, 
the stork’s white feathers and red legs and bill, 
and the brilliant plumage of some of the other 
birds. The black and white woodcuts some- 
times obtruded themselves and blotted out all 
this gorgeous colouring, but he could always 
58 


A PRIVACY OF STORM 


banish them rapidly and sternly. He was in- 
terrupted in this absorbing occupation by a 
sudden swirl of snow that broke in through the 
window pane. It was delightful to have a bit 
of the storm burst in — it emphasized the com- 
fort of the house, and it was fun to watch the 
pane being fixed up again. 

When it began to be dark, and the glow of 
the fire was more comfortable than ever, his 
father suggested songs. Singing was one of 
the nice things they did together on Sunday. 
They went over to the great harp in the cor- 
ner, whose strings gleamed fitfully in the fire- 
light, while “the wooden lady with no clothes,” 
as Michael called the sea maiden which formed 
the frame, was hidden in darkness. His father 
touched the strings, and the big golden sounds, 
which made Michael feel suddenly warm in- 
side, and happy in a funny sort of way, as if 
he was going to cry, began. There were a few 
of Moore’s melodies within the compass of his 
infant voice; “Erin, the tear and the smile in 
thine eye” was his favourite. The words had 
no meaning for him, but their sweetness, and 
59 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


the tender beauty of the melody, filled him 
with satisfaction to the innermost recesses of 
his little being. ‘T wish there was more,” he 
said when he had finished. ‘T hate stopping.” 

“Try ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ now,” his 
father said. So Michael sang it, and then his 
father sang “The Harp of Tara.” Michael 
did not altogether understand that song either ; 
but when his father sang: 

“Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes 
The only throb she gives 
Is when some heart indignant breaks 
To show that still she lives.” 

he felt as if this was too sad and dreadful to 
be endured, and something seemed to be 
swelling in his chest as if it was going to split 
with angry pain. “Oft in the Stilly Night” 
followed, and Michael understood that song. 
The words, 

“When I remember all 

The friends, so linked together, 

IVe seen around me fall 

Like leaves in wintry weather, 

I feel like one 
60 


A PRIVACY OF STORM 


Who treads alone 
Some banquet hall deserted. 

Whose lights are fled 
Whose garlands dead 
And all but he departed.” 

seemed to reveal to him with sudden, inex- 
orable clearness the hitherto unreal, grown up 
future. He tasted the sorrow and loneliness 
of age, knew it lay before him and could not 
be avoided. If he had ever thought of his 
manhood before, it had only been in a vague 
and futile attempt to picture himself with long 
legs in trousers, when he had no better occupa- 
tion for his thoughts. Now he realized himself 
as an old man — Susan and Nieder gone, even 
his precious father gone — felt the vain, sick 
pang of desolation. Fortunately the mirage, 
if clear, was brief; Brian Boroimhe’s march 
speedily banished it. Then there was the de- 
light of making toast for tea by that great, 
glowing fire, and getting it just the right 
golden brown. Michael liked all his colours 
just right. The smell of the toast, the cosiness 
of the table by the fire, the pleasure of his 
61 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


father’s companionship, were joys so potent 
that all the energy of his nature was required to 
appreciate them. Then, after tea, his father 
sat down and told him stories, in their own 
whispering, swishing, eerie tongue, that 
throbbed hke a heart quivering under the close 
pressure of surrounding mysteries. They 
were stories of fairies and wonders, and Mi- 
chael drank them in thirstily, eagerly. The 
love of the wonderful was in his blood, beat 
hotly in every vein in his body, and his father 
fed and fostered it. When bedtime came he 
was wrapped up and tucked in with especial 
care. “It’s Canadian weather we are going 
to have now, son of my heart,” said his father, 
and the tone he used sent a shiver of joy 
through Michael. Canadian weather was evi- 
dently something ominous — but it was also 
something new, untried, and Michael was ready 
to meet it with delight. 


62 


CHAPTER VI 
nieder’s mother 

Next morning Michael was eager to go out, 
although his father came stamping in with 
hunched shoulders and a stiff, red face, indica- 
tive of anything but enjoyment; he stamped 
up to the fire, spread out his hands over it 
and exclaimed; — ‘T never dreamed of such 
weather!” 

‘T want to go out,” said Michael, eagerly 
seizing his over-socks and beginning to pull 
them on. 

“Well, Michael, I suppose you’ll have to get 
hardened to this, but — ” his father gave him a 
long and doubtful look. 

“I want to see what it’s like,” said Michael. 

“You’ll see, as soon as you get your nose 
outside the door,” was the grim reply. 

Michael had never been so muffled up in all 
his hfe as he was this morning. Only a pair 
63 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

of great, limpid grey eyes, a nose and a rosy 
hint of cheeks hidden somewhere in an envelop- 
ing shawl were visible as he ran out. 

It certainly was different from anything he 
had ever known before. Everything was so 
white, so bright, so still, he hardly recognised 
the familiar scene. There was so much snow! 
Why, as he ran along the path to the gate, he 
could just see over the top of it. There was 
something very queer in the air. He had so 
many clothes on that he had not supposed 
he would feel cold, but by the time he reached 
the gate he felt something getting through at 
his fingers, although he had his father’s mitts 
on over his own. Then he felt it getting 
through at his feet. 

Susan’s gate was just opposite his, and a 
path had been ploughed between them. Su- 
san was standing on the path, and had just 
discovered the woful fact that it ended at their 
gates. ‘‘Oh, Michael!” she cried. “We can’t 
get up to the Rebel’s House! The road 
doesn’t go on; I tried to get through the snow, 
and I went down and down till I thought I 
64 


NIEDER’S MOTHER 


was going to be drowned. See, I’m all snow 
away up past my waist.” 

‘‘And Dukeland had nothing to eat all day 
yesterday! WeVe got to give him his break- 
fast,” said Michael, in dismay. 

“And I wanted to have school up there to- 
day. Mother told me all about school — ” Su- 
san saw it was useless to continue, for Michael 
was shouting: “Dukeland! Dukeland! Duke- 
land!” 

“Oh, he’s coming!” he said at last, in a tone 
of relief. “He is so green on the snow! He’s 
coming hke a streak, he must be awfully 
hungry. Here, Dukeland!” Michael shook 
off his father’s mitt, at which Susan burst out 
laughing, put his hand in his pocket, drew out 
an imaginary slice of bread, and held it for 
Dukeland to eat. He was glad Dukeland was 
hungry and gobbled the bread, for he could not 
have stood having his father’s mitt off long. 
“My hands hurt!” he said as he picked it up 
again. 

“Come into the henhouse and warm them on 
my banty hen,” said Susan. 

65 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


As they made their way to Susan’s henhouse 
Michael became aware that his feet hurt too. 
When they came in, the banty hen was sitting 
on a nest. “Put your hand under her wing,” 
said Susan. 

Michael pulled off both mitts, and thought 
his hand a funny colour. He went up to the 
banty hen, but just as he was going to put his 
hand under her wing she flew off cackling. 
She was used to Susan’s hand, but not to Mi- 
chael’s. 

“Come into the stable and we’ll try the 
cow,” said Susan. 

The cow was lying down, and she let the 
children snuggle up to her, one on each side, 
and warm their hands in her hair. It was 
very comfortable for Michael’s hands, but his 
feet hurt worse than ever. 

Presently Susan’s father came in with a 
pitchfork. “Susan!” he exclaimed. “What 
are you doing there? Get up out of that at 
once, and don’t ever let me And such a thing 
again!” 

“Michael’s hands were cold, and I brought 
66 


NIEDER’S MOTHER 


him in to warm them on the banty hen, but 
she flew away, so I brought him in here,” Su- 
san explained. 

‘‘Michael! Where’s Michael? I don’t see 
him.” 

“I’m on the other side,” said Michael, ris- 
ing, and regarding Susan’s father with in- 
terest. He stood up so straight, Michael 
thought he must have been a soldier once, and 
from his way of talking he thought he must be 
used to killing people. “He isn’t as nice as 
my father,” was his prompt conclusion, after 
a moment’s earnest scrutiny. 

“So you’re the wonderful Michael!” said 
Susan’s father. 

“I’m not wonderful,” said Michael, raising 
a pair of gravely regretful eyes. “I have 
never killed a lion, or done anything.” 

“Never done anything? You ought to be 
ashamed of yourself! When I was your age 
I did all the milkin’, and there were seven or 
eight cows too. I was too busy to use them 
for warmin’ pans. I had enough to do to keep 
me warm! If I had done nothing but sit 
67 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


curled up beside the cow like the stable kitten, 
my father wouldn’t have thought me worth my 
board, and he would have put me in a bag and 
carried me off to the woods and lost me!” 

Michael began to think Susan came of a 
savage stock. ‘T make toast for tea,” he 
urged in self-defence. 

‘‘Oh, do you? What a help you must be to 
your father! I suppose that leaves him noth- 
ing to do but sit and read his paper.” 

“No, he does lots of other things. He at- 
tends to the horses and keeps the fire going 
and cooks the dinner.” 

“And you just make the toast, do you? 
What a useful boy you are !” 

Michael had never before come across the 
kind of person whose only notion of making 
himself agreeable to children is to tease them, 
and watch the look that comes over their grave 
innocent faces as if it were the biggest joke 
in the world. Susan knew how this was meant, 
and was laughing, and Michael thought she 
was laughing at him. He suddenly flew into 
a passion and dashed out of the stable, fight- 
68 


NIEDER’S MOTHER 


ing back angry sobs, and forgetting both his 
own mitts and his father’s. Susan ran after 
him with them. 

“Michael, here are your four mitts,” she 
called, still laughing. 

Michael glared at her. 

“I’m never coming to see you any more. 
I’m never going to speak to you any more!” 
he cried. He flung the mitts down and 
stamped on them, then took one of his own and 
tore it in his teeth. 

Susan had often had quarrels with Nieder, 
but he had never behaved like this. She was 
terrifled, and changed from laughter to tears. 
“Why are you so angry with me?” she sobbed. 
“I brought you in — to warm y-you — on — the 
cow!” 

“You laughed at me. Your father scolded 
me for not working, and I don’t see why he 
should bother about whether I work or not. 
He said my father only read his paper, and my 
father does lots of things!” 

“Why, Michael, he was only teasing, and I 
was laughing at him.” 


69 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


‘‘At himr There was something unheard 
of and monstrous to Michael in the idea of 
laughing at one’s father. 

“I mean — at his fun. It was only for fun 
— ^he talks to me like that^ — all the time!” 

“My father never talks like that,” said Mi- 
chael. 

Just then Susan’s father came out. 
“What’s all this about? Michael, are you a 
born fool to stand out there with no mitts on? 
Susan, what are you crying about?” 

“Susan’s father, I didn’t understand that 
you were teasing. My father has a nice way 
of teasing that makes you know he doesn’t 
mean it. I got mad,” explained Michael. 

Susan’s father burst out laughing. “Evi- 
dently you did, or you wouldn’t stand outside 
on a zero morning in your bare hands. Susan, 
you get your sled and take him sliding down- 
hill. That will warm him up better than 
cows.” 

At the mention of sliding downhill Mi- 
chael’s mood underwent one of its many light- 
ning changes, and anger was banished by eager 
70 


NIEDER’S MOTHER 

joy. Once or twice before, when there was 
an unusual snowfall in the environs of Clad- 
dagh, he had known the rapture of sliding 
downhill. The glory of this prospect could 
not be dimmed even by the painful fact that 
his hands hurt worse than ever, and his feet 
felt as if the toes had ceased to belong to them. 
He put on his mitts and ran after Susan to the 
upper part of the barn, from which she pro- 
duced two sleds, for she was the only child of 
prosperous parents, and was in the consequent 
state of affluence. They went out on the road, 
and slid all the way down the hill to the shore 
of the river, where they were abruptly pitched 
forward into a snow bank, just opposite Nie- 
der’s gate. They rolled about, kicking and 
scuffling and laughing till they were almost 
too helpless to get up, but when they finally 
did so, Michael once more became sharply 
aware of the condition of his hands and feet. 
He had taken off his father’s mitts so that he 
could handle the sled, and he now had cause 
to bitterly regret the mitt he had torn in his 
teeth. They stood looking at Nieder’s house. 
71 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


It was a little green house, and looked very 
pretty with snow on the roof. “If I didn’t 
know it was just Nieder lives in that house, I 
would think it was fairy people,” said Michael. 
It was impossible to connect any glamour of 
romance with Nieder, even though he had once 
had a stork’s nest on his chimney. 

“Let’s go in and get him,” said Susan. 

They went up to the door of the fairy-like 
green house and rang the bell. Nieder’s 
mother came to the door. “Susan!” she ex- 
claimed. “Is it you, out on such a morning?” 

“Yes, Michael and I are shding downhill, 
and we came to get Nieder.” 

“Nieder cannot go out on such a morning. 
So this is Michael? Child, what for do you 
cry?” 

“I am not crying,” said Michael, making a 
brave effort to speak in a normal tone. “But 
my hands hurt, and my toes don’t belong to 
my feet any more.” 

“You poor little man!” exclaimed Nieder’s 
mother. “It is not right for so small childs to 
be out in such cold. Come in and become 
.72 


NIEDER’S MOTHER 


warmed, rather than you should take Nieder 
out to become freezed.” 

Michael lost no time in obeying, hut Susan 
followed him reluctantly. “I’m not cold,” she 
said. “He has been cold all morning. I 
warmed him on the cow, and then I thought 
he and Nieder and I could slide downhill. I 
want to slide downhill!” 

“Michael must be warmed first,” said Nie- 
der’s mother with great decision. She led him 
into a sunny little room, where Nieder ’s father 
sat close up to the stove, and Nieder was bend- 
ing over a picture book. She said something 
to them, in words that were neither Irish nor 
English. They sounded something hke pig- 
eons talking, and something like geese. Nie- 
der ’s father glanced at the children, grunted, 
and went on with his smoking. Susan went 
over beside Nieder to look at the picture book, 
and Nieder ’s mother set Michael down on a 
chair and undid his manifold wrappings, smil- 
ing at the clumsy ingenuity with which they 
were fastened. “Some time I hope to find a 
little boy, but yet I can only find shawls and 
73 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


mufflers,” she said. But finally she got them 
all undone, and disclosed a beautiful little face 
(beautiful in spite of a blue complexion) with 
the clear brow sternly knitted, the lips, fine 
and strong in spite of their baby softness, 
drawn and rigid in piteous endurance, and 
tears filling the lovely eyes. She took off his 
mitts next, and on seeing his hands, ex- 
claimed: — ''Ach, du armes Kindr Then 
added: — "“You are frostbitten where your mitt 
was torn. Susan, run out at once and get a 
dish of snow!” 

“Did Jack Frost bite me, and I never saw 
him?” exclaimed Michael. 

“He did indeed, he bit your poor hand.” 

“It must have been when I was mad, and I 
never saw him! I want to see a fairy. I 
would rather it was a beautiful fairy, hut Jack 
Frost would do.” 

“You silly!” exclaimed Susan. “Jack 
Frost only belongs in pictures, he isn’t real.” 

“But he bit my hand,” Michael replied. 

Nieder’s mother laughed. She was by this 
time rubbing the hand with snow, which seemed 
74 


NIEDER’S MOTHER 


to Michael very funny. “Wait till he bites 
your hand,” she said to Susan, “and see if you 
will say he is not real!” 

As the hurt went out of Michael’s hands, it 
was gradually borne in on him that he liked 
Nieder’s mother. He loved her to talk. He 
had forgotten what a nice way mothers had of 
talking. She had a queer way of saying every 
word carefully, and when she said words that 
ended in r she seemed to make them long, and 
they sounded big and black. But that wasn’t 
the part of her talking that was nice, that was 
only queer. The nice part was the mother 
part. There was no way of saying what it was 
like, but he wanted to hear more and more of 
it. 

“You don’t always talk English,” he said. 
“What did you talk when you took my mitts 
off?” 

“That was Deutsch. That is our speech,” 
she replied. 

“Is that what people talk in Germany?” 

“Yes.” 

“We talk Irish. I wish people did it in 
75 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


Canada. I don’t like English words, except 
three or four nice ones.” 

“Are the Irish words more nice?” 

“Yes, the Irish words are all different col- 
ours. There are some of them that jump, and 
some of them that fly, and some of them are 
always standing in the sun.” 

“I have outdrawn the frost!” exclaimed 
Nieder’s mother joyfully. “Now I will see in 
what way your foots And themselves.” 

“I think my toes are beginning to join on 
again,” said Michael, somewhat doubtfully. 

Nieder’s mother took off his shoes and stock- 
ings, and then she rubbed his feet — not in snow 
this time, but in her big warm hands. When 
Michael regained the use of his toes he did not 
leave them in idleness long; he used them to 
grab Nieder’s mother’s Angers with, and as 
they were remarkably active and muscular lit- 
tle toes, they could grab hard. A wild gleam 
of mischief came into his eyes as she pretended 
to be dismayed, and cried out: ""Achr every 
time she was caught. At last she put his shoes 
76 


NIEDER’S MOTHER 


and stockings on again, after much laughing 
resistance from him, declaring: — ‘‘Now those 
bad toes will have to be good 1” 

“My feet feel nice now,” said Michael. 
“They feel like two nice warm biscuits.” 

“Well then, can he come out and slide down- 
hill with- me?” demanded Susan. 

“First I must that mitt mend, or his hand 
will become again freezed,” replied Nieder’s 
mother. She was taking up the mitt, when 
they heard steps on the verandah. 

“My father is coming!” cried Michael. 

Nieder’s mother ran to the door. By sub- 
sequent observation, Michael discovered that 
she always ran to do anything that had to be 
done for a man, and she never said anything 
when a man was in the room. He heard his 
father say: — “Excuse this intrusion, but I have 
lost my little boy, and there are two sleds at 
the foot of the hill here. Have you seen him?” 

“I’m here!” cried Michael, and ran out into 
the hall. 

“Come in, if you please, mein Herr/^ said 

77 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

Nieder’s mother. “The frost bit his hand 
through that torn mitt, which I suppose you 
know not how to mend — ” 

“I tore it myself, after I went out,” said 
Michael, eager to exonerate his father. 

“Let me see your hand,” the latter ex- 
claimed. He examined it anxiously. 

“It’s all right now,” said Michael. “Nier 
der’s mother cured the bite with snow. But 
Jack Frost bit my hand without my seeing 
him !” he added wofully. 

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” said 
Michael’s father. “How did you come to 
bring him in?” 

“That Susan, who is as hard to cold as one 
of those small beasts that run up trees and 
chirp, came with him to get Nieder to come out 
and be freezed, and your child had his eyes in 
tears, yet he would not cry, and I learned that 
his foots and hands were in pain from cold, so 
I bringed him in.” 

After that, Nieder’s father talked to Mi- 
chael’s father for a long, long time, and Nie- 
der’s mother sat without saying anything, as 
78 


NIEDER’S MOTHER 

if she were a little girl. Nieder showed Mi- 
chael his picture book. There was a picture 
of a toucan, with a beautiful golden breast, 
and Michael made up his mind that some day 
he would catch a toucan and keep it for a pet. 
Its golden breast would be so bright they 
would see it even at night, in the dark. Then 
they went into the dining room, and played 
trains with the chairs till Nieder’s mother had 
to reclaim them for use at dinner. It was a 
delicious dinner ; there was a pudding that Mi- 
chael remembered for days and days. He 
always remembered it particularly when he 
awoke in the morning — a time when he re- 
membered nice words and nice smells. He en- 
joyed having dinner off a different kind of 
dishes. Their own dishes were big and white 
and nearly all the same, hke English words. 
There was one with a cover he called the cour- 
age dish, because it was like an English word 
that was different from the others. But these 
dishes were blue and golden around the edge, 
and there was a jug that was just the colour of 
the sky, and a yellow butter dish that was like 
79 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

a person, because it had ears, and talked when 
it was passed with the cover on. There were 
a lot of little butter dishes too, with edges that 
made them look hke stars, and yellow flowers 
in the middle. It suddenly struck Michael 
that the big butter dish was a mother, and the 
httle butter dishes were her children, and they 
were brothers and sisters, and they were all 
very, very happy. He liked eating his butter, 
because the more he ate the more of the yellow 
flower he saw. When dinner was over, Susan 
suddenly announced: — “Bless us, I must get 
home ! Mother will have dinner ready for me, 
and think I’m lost!” as if that appalling 
thought had only that moment occurred to her. 
As a matter of fact, she had known perfectly 
well it was time to go home, when she smelled 
the dinner cooking, but it smelled like a better 
dinner than she would get at home, so she 
stayed, and said nothing about her anxious 
mother till the cauliflower with white sauce (a 
delicacy in which she was not allowed to in- 
dulge at home) and the delicious pudding had 
been safely disposed of. Now, however, she 
80 


NIEDER’S MOTHER 


wore an expression of solemn dismay as Nie- 
der’s mother was putting on her things, and 
exhorted her to “please hurry up, because 
mother will be anxious!” and ran down the 
steps like an innocent, dutiful child, intent only 
on relieving her mother’s mind as speedily as 
possible. 

Michael found things dull after she was 
gone. Nieder was taken away to have his 
afternoon sleep, and Michael was generally 
put to bed for an hour in the afternoon, also, 
if he happened to be anywhere within reach of 
his father. But to-day, Nieder’s father went 
on and on, talking to his father, till Michael 
began to think he must have been going on for 
about a hundred hours, or perhaps longer, for 
he knew there were bigger numbers. He be- 
gan to get very tired of not talking, and he 
wondered why Nieder’s mother did not talk 
either. He thought there were only two nice 
things about growing up- — one was that you 
might be a patriot, and the other was that you 
could talk all you wanted to; yet Nieder’s 
mother was not availing herself of the latter 
81 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


privilege. He sat down beside her on a little 
stool, and presently his head was down on her 
knee and he was asleep. 

He was awakened by his father saying, very 
gently: — “Come along, small man, we must go 
home.” He opened his eyes, and turned his 
head round to look up. What was that com- 
fortable thing it was resting on? It was a 
mother’s knee! 

The big warm hand that had rubbed his feet 
slipped under his cheek, so softly, and raised 
up his face, and a voice breathed as if to it- 
self : — '' A ch, die wunderschone Augenr 

Michael’s eyes were “wonder-beautiful,” 
and they were especially so in the soft be- 
wilderment of waking. Any one who knew 
him could read all the bright imaginings that 
went on behind them, and shone through their 
transparent grey, but to strangers, and to some 
friends who thought they knew him very well, 
they were a mystery. All such people knew 
about them was that they had a beauty beyond 
the usual limpid innocence of a child’s eyes, 
and it was a beauty that would have made one 
82 


NIEDER’S MOTHER 


feel a little shivery, were it not for the healthy 
gleams of mischief that came into them so 
often. 

Perhaps what Nieder’s mother did, when 
Michael was all wrapped up and ready to go 
home, was not a wise thing to do to a boy who 
must get on without a mother, but she did it 
because, not being only Nieder’s mother, but 
a mother altogether, she could not help it. 
She had been kneeling down to fix the shawl 
that hid him, all but his eyes and nose, when 
she suddenly threw her arms around him, and 
in some way reached her mouth in under the 
shawl and kissed his cheek. Subsequently 
Michael often puzzled over how she had done 
it, but not at that moment; he only put his 
arms around her neck and hugged her tight. 
It was beautiful, beautiful, to have his arms 
around a mother’s neck, and when he let go he 
had a sharp feeling inside that hurt him all 
through, and he felt the tears coming. It had 
made him remember the time, long ago, when 
he used to put his arms around a mother’s neck 
every night at bedtime, and after that, she 
83 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


always gave him a piece of barley sugar to suck 
till he went to sleep. But the wild, wonder- 
ful excitement of coming to the new country 
and helping to build the log house, and the joy 
he got from his imaginary creatures, had ban- 
ished all thought of that time, and he had com- 
pletely forgotten what it was like to have a 
mother, till he put his arms around Nieder’s 
mother’s neck. Then he felt that a mother was 
something you couldnft do without; that he 
couldn’t stand not having one of his very own. 
The sharp feeling inside hurt as nothing had 
ever hurt since the morning he found a tousled 
red-eyed aunt in his mother’s pink apron. He 
held on tight to his father’s hand all the way 
home, and kept his face turned away to hide 
the tears he was mastering resolutely. He 
said to himself, over and over: — ‘T’m quite sat- 
isfied with father!” and was determined not 
to let him think otherwise. But when they 
came in, and his father began to unwrap him, 
he exclaimed: — “Michael! What’s the mat- 
ter?” 

Then Michael could keep hack the sobs no 
84 


NIEDER’S MOTHER 


longer, and at last, after being pressed to ex- 
plain, he said: — ‘Tt was only Nieder’s mother!” 

His father took him up on his knee without 
a word, and in an instant a pair of eager little 
arms were close around his neck, and although 
it flashed through Michael that this wasn’t a 
mother’s neck, he hugged him tight, because 
whatever happened he did not want to hurt his 
father’s feehngs — ^his dear, precious father, 
who was always so good to him — with whom he 
had better times even than with Susan and 
Nieder. “Father, I’m quite satisfied with 
you!” he sobbed. 

Then, somehow, although his father said very 
little, Michael knew he understood it all; but 
his feelings were not hurt, although he was 
feeling very sorry about something. 


85 


CHAPTER VII 


THE FAIRY ROAD 

The next day Michael was given clear and 
decided instructions not to stand still a mo- 
ment, and to come straight home if his hands 
and feet hurt. He and Susan spent a morn- 
ing of pure delight, sliding downhill, and for 
days, Michael thought (it was really only two 
or three) this joy absorbed them so completely, 
they could scarcely think of another thing. 
They forgot all about the Rebel’s House, and 
Michael even forgot Dukeland and Shylince. 
In fact, they were behaving very like some silly 
big people who don’t know any better, and let- 
ting one rather stupid amusement absorb the 
whole of their naturally active and versatile 
little minds. 

Meanwhile Nieder was having a dull and 
lonely time of it, and he began to fret. He 
86 


THE FAIRY ROAD 


did not fret in the decided, turbulent way in 
which Susan or Michael would have fretted — 
he could not be said to be naughty^ — yet he cer- 
tainly did make himself very tiresome. He 
could not amuse himself alone. Susan could 
if she had to, though she did not like to have 
to, and Michael thoroughly enjoyed what he 
called his “happy by myself times,” when he 
would be quiet for hours, absorbed in a village 
made of chips, or in pictures in books he got 
from the shelves, or simply thinking. There 
were so many wonderful things to think about. 
But Nieder had none of those resources. Some- 
times he rode furiously on his rocking horse, 
lashing it with his whip, sometimes he stamped 
about blowing his tin trumpet or beating his 
drum, but when these amusements palled he 
could invent no others, and he wandered about 
the house, asking when it would be dinner-time, 
and in the afternoon, when it would be tea- 
time? Or else he stood at the window, looking 
out at two little red figures that sped past the 
gate on sleds, and then ran back uphill again, 
or stayed awhile to tumble each other about in 
87 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


the snow. After a couple of days of this, his 
mother could stand it no longer, so she 
wrapped him up well and sent him out. He 
dashed down to the gate, and looked eagerly 
about for Susan and Michael, but instead of 
coming downhill towards him on sleds, as he 
expected, they were running, and to his great 
disappointment they had no sleds with them. 

“Oh, Nieder!” panted Susan, as she dashed 
up, and leaned against the gatepost for sup- 
port. “I was so glad when I saw you, because, 
what do you think, there’s a path up to the 
Rebel’s House this morning, and I can have 
school up there, but I need you for that, be- 
cause I can’t have school made of just Mi- 
chael!” 

“It’s a fairy path!” cried Michael. “It can’t 
have been anybody but fairies made it, be- 
cause none of our fathers would want to get 
to the Rebel’s House!” 

“Stuff!” said Susan. “You talk about 
fairies as if they were real, like us, instead of 
just story things!” 

“But of course fairies are real!” protested 
88 


THE FAIRY ROAD 

Michael. “They’re not a bit like us, but 
they’re real the way angels are, only of course 
they’re nothing like angels. I’m going to see 
a fairy some day. I’m going to watch and 
watch till I see it, and perhaps I’ll even make 
friends with it.” 

“People don’t see fairies,” said Nieder. 

“Lots of people I used to know saw them. 
A lot of my aunts saw them!” said Michael, 
with awed solemnity. “But it was such a 
funny thing, afterward they were just like or- 
dinary people all the same. I’m sure if I once 
saw a fairy, I’d never get over it!” 

“I thought you were going to slide down- 
hill,” said Nieder. “I have seen you slide 
downhill every day when mother would not 
let me go out, and now you do not do it.” 

“Perhaps we will after awhile,” said Mi- 
chael. “But we must go up the fairy road to 
the Rebel’s House!” 

“And we must have school when we get 
there,” said Susan. 

“I don’t want school. I want to slide down- 
hill,” said Nieder. 


89 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


‘‘Here’s where the fairy path begins,” said 
Michael, as they passed his gate and Su- 
san’s. 

“How could fairies plough a path?” de- 
manded Susan, scornfully. 

“Oh, I don’t know how — but they’ve done 
it. Look at those beautiful little stars all over 
the snow. They have something to do with 
fairies.” 

“Those sparkling things? Oh, they’re just 
natural history.” 

“Natural history is animals,” said Michael. 

“It’s animals too of course, but it’s stones, 
and snowflakes, and — and — all those things,” 
was Susan’s clear and satisfactory deflnition. 

“I’m sure those stars have something to do 
with fairies,” Michael repeated. “Anyway 
the fairies made this path, because no one else 
would do it.” 

“Santa Claus might have,” said Nieder, 
slowly and doubtfully. “But I thought he 
only brought things at Christmas.” 

“You’re very silly boys,” said Susan. 
“One of our fathers did it for a surprise, or 
90 


THE FAIRY ROAD 


else it was that old Colquhoun. He is always 
doing queer things.” 

“You just ask your father, Susan. Nieder, 
you ask yours, and 111 ask mine. I’m sure 
it wasn’t them.” 

“Then it was old Colquhoun,” said Susan. 

“I’ll ask him too,” said Michael. 

All this argument could not take away from 
the wonder of actually walking up a path to 
the Rebel’s House that had been dug by fairies. 
Every step was a rarefied joy such as Michael 
could never remember feeling before, many 
and vivid as his joys had been. It was almost 
as wonderful as seeing a fairy to be on the road 
they had made. His heart had always been 
so hungry for wonders; now it was tasting de- 
licious satisfaction. He felt as if something 
was shining inside of him, he was so happy. 
They went up the steps and pushed open the 
big door with the lion’s head on it, that never 
shut quite tight, and was now heavier and 
stiffer than ever before, having been several 
days untouched. They went into the great 
bare room with the sun shining on the floor. 

91 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


Susan made Michael and Nieder sit down side 
by side on the window sill, and she mounted 
an old soap box in front of them. 

‘‘Now school will begin,’' she said. “Geog- 
raphy first. Ireland and Germany are on 
one side of the sea, and Canada is on the other 
side. Then there’s the North Pole, where it’s 
always as cold as it is here just now, and the 
river we hve beside.” 

“There’s a country called the Americans on 
the other side of the river,” said Michael. 

“There’s a country called Spain besides,” 
said Nieder. 

“That’s a nice name,” said Michael. “It’s 
hke the big golden sounds all mixed up with 
honey.” 

“Arithmetic next,” continued Susan with 
dignity. “Two fives make ten, and twelve are 
a dozen.” 

“And six are half a dozen, and ten tens are 
a hundred, and there are millions and billions 
and trillions besides,” supplemented Michael. 

“You must always hold up your hand be- 
fore you say anything. Grammar next. It 
92 


THE FAIRY ROAD 


isn’t grammar to talk about scalawags, though 
father does it sometimes. Natural history 
next. Lions and tigers don’t live here — ” 

“Oh, Susan — ” Michael began. 

“I’m teacher,” she corrected. 

“Teacher,” he said, with a little giggle at 
that title in the midst of his consternation, “are 
you sure?” 

“Of course I’m sure. I wouldn’t teach you 
anything I’m not sure of.” 

“I wanted to find a lion in the woods and 
kill him!” 

“Well, bears live here. Perhaps you’ll find 
a bear. Minks five here too, and an animal 
with a smell it isn’t grammar to talk about. 
Fairies don’t live here — ” 

“They do!” protested Michael hotly. 

“If you contradict the teacher, mother says 
you have to be punished. Go and stay in the 
corner over there.” 

“It’s too cold.” 

“Then say you’re sorry.” 

“I’m sorry, but they do live here, and they 
made a road so you could have school up here.” 

93 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


‘Ts school nearly done?” asked Nieder. 

“Well, I believe that’s all,” said Susan re- 
gretfully. “I can’t remember anything else 
mother told me was taught in school.” 

“Then can we slide downhill?” demanded 
Nieder. 

Michael was reluctant to leave the Rebel’s 
House so soon, and on this particular morning 
too, when it was invested with a double glam- 
our; but for a little mortal with such very in- 
tense desires as he had, he was pretty good- 
natured about giving them up when anybody 
else wanted something else very badly, so they 
all went out, and had the wildest morning of 
sliding downhill they had had yet; for there 
were three of them instead of two, which in- 
creased the noise and fun, and they had the 
whole height of the hillside to slide down, and 
they never knew where they were going to land 
next, or with just what force they were going 
to be precipitated into the deep snowdrift be- 
side the river. When the big dinner gong 
sounded (this was an institution Michael’s 
father had started, to save endless trouble about 
94 


THE FAIRY ROAD 


unpunctuality at mealtimes) and there was a 
general scramble out of that drift and home- 
wards, Michael reminded the other two to re- 
member to ask their fathers if they had 
ploughed the path. He asked his father first 
thing when he burst in the door, all covered 
with snow, his cheeks crimson and his eyes shin- 
ing. “There’s a fairy road up to the Rebel’s 
House this morning!” he cried. ‘T know it 
was fairies made it, but just because Susan and 
Nieder thought it wasn’t I told them to be sure 
to ask their fathers if they ploughed it, and 
I’d ask you.” 

“I certainly didn’t,” his father replied, look- 
ing astonished. 

“Then it was fairies!” cried Michael, danc- 
ing wildly about. “I’m sure it wasn’t Susan’s 
father, and I’m quite sure it wasn’t Nieder’s,” 
as he remembered the fat figure tilted back in 
a chair in front of the stove, talking and talk- 
ing and talking. 

He ate his dinner very silently that day. 
He was full of delightful excitement, not only 
about the fairy road (although that was ex- 
95 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

citing enough, for now his one little flickering 
doubt was extinguished; he had thought it 
might be his father) but about the big, bold, 
adventurous thing he must do right after din- 
ner, in order to convince Susan. He must go 
and ask old Colquhoun. Old Colquhoun’s 
premises were as yet undiscovered country; 
they had all the fascination of the unknown. 
Not that he expected them to be extraordinary 
in any way. He could not, very well, as for 
him there was no ordinary. Perhaps big 
people, if they hark back far enough, can 
understand the fascination woodpiles, rubbish 
heaps, barns and woodsheds had for Michael. 
The chips and blocks he found in such places 
positively insisted on being people, and houses 
and villages; scarcely less delightful were the 
numberless, curious, inexplicable, suggestive 
objects for which he could find no especial use. 
Sometimes they suggested, wordlessly but with 
the utmost poignancy, grim tragedies — some- 
times they brought the brightest, most blissful 
thoughts. To Michael, at six years old, no 
object was without significance. What a fer- 
96 


THE FAIRY ROAD 

tile field he had already found his father’s rub- 
bish heap! Thence had been transported a 
number of tin cans, old bottomless rusty 
dippers, superannuated saucepans, and leaky 
coffee pots, to a certain room in the Rebel’s 
House, hereafter known as the aviary, in- 
habited by a choice collection of birds of Para- 
dise, cockatoos, paroquets, and owls. Only the 
coveted toucan with its wonderful golden breast 
was missing; it had not yet found a sufficiently 
worthy representative. Susan’s rubbish heap 
was of a different, but equally suggestive 
character. The possibilities of Nieder’s back 
yard had also been partially discovered; but 
nothing whatever was known about old Col- 
quhoun’s premises. Old Colquhoun himself 
was of secondary importance. His usefulness 
would be terminated as soon as he denied hav- 
ing ploughed the path. 

He had a big, heavy gate= — so heavy that Mi- 
chael had a long struggle to get it open; he 
thought several times that he would have to 
give up trying, but he was determined he would 
not if he could possibly help it; and at last, 
97 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


after many gigantic efforts, he got it just 
enough open to wriggle through, and then he 
danced and yelled in triumphant joy. Sud- 
denly there was a noise of barking that drowned 
out every other sound, and a lot of great big 
dogs flew at him from all sides, their necks bris- 
tling in a way he thought was grand; they were 
almost as good as lions ! There must be a hun- 
dred of them, he thought, but he did not know 
what it was to feel frightened, so he went 
straight on up the path to old Colquhoun’s 
door. Old Colquhoun was there by the time he 
reached it, calling the dogs, who surrounded 
him, crouching before him, and curling them- 
selves around his feet. 

‘‘Good day, old Colquhoun,” said Michael. 
“Did you plough that path up to the Rebel’s 
House?” 

He noticed that old Colquhoun had a long 
beard, and wore an apron — two funny , things, 
which he had never seen before. He had 
thought it was only mothers who wore aprons, 
and he was not accustomed to men with beards. 

He did not reply to Michael’s question im- 
98 


THE FAIRY ROAD 


mediately; then he ejaculated, with a most 
astounding volume of voice: — “Losh behearsT' 
“Did you plough it?” Michael repeated. 
“Do ye think I ha’e naething else to do, than 
fash masel’ ploughin’ paths for weans?” old 
Colquhoun demanded. “Is that a’ ye cam’ 
here to ask me? Ma cakes will be burned 
black,” and he turned round and hurried back 
into the house. Michael followed him. He 
had not understood this, and wondered what 
new language it was that had a little English 
in it and yet wasn’t English. From the tone, 
though, he had no doubt it was a highly in- 
dignant denial, and that rejoiced his heart. 
He had already decided that he liked old Col- 
quhoun. Although his voice was so big and 
angry, it was soft, and had a nice sound in it. 
People’s voices were generally what decided 
Michael as to whether he liked them or not. 

“I really knew you didn’t, ^ — ” he began as he 
followed old Colquhoun through the house. 

“Then why did ye come fashin’ me ahoot 
it?” demanded old Colquhoun, turning round 
on him. 


99 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

“Susan and Nieder wouldn’t believe it was 
fairies, but I knew there was nobody else would 
have done it, so I told them to ask their fathers, 
and I’d ask mine, and then they said it was 
you, so I said I’d ask you too. Now they’ll 
know it couldn’t have been any one but 
fairies!” 

Old Colquhoun looked hard at Michael for 
a few minutes, without saying anything more. 
Michael thought he meant something by look- 
ing at him that way, but he did not know or 
care what it was, he was so triumphant and 
happy about the path. 

“Wha but fairies would do it?” demanded 
old Colquhoun at last, in a short, impatient 
tone, as if any other theory was too silly to be 
considered for a moment. 

He hurried on to the kitchen, which was full 
of an entrancing smell of cakes. On the table 
was a pile of them, the perfect golden brown 
that Michael loved, and a dog was standing 
with his forepaws on the table, his nose rapidly 
approaching the tempting heap. Old Colqu- 
houn ejaculated: — “Colin!” in a tone that made 
100 


THE FAIRY ROAD 


Michael jump, and brought the dog down to 
the floor at his feet, crouching and quivering. 
“Ye would steal, would ye? Weel, ye would 
ha’e had your share if ye had been honest. N oo 
ye’ll see Jessie get twa cakes, bit by bit, and 
ye’ll look on.” Michael thought if his father 
spoke to him in such a tone he would be so 
ashamed he would never get over it all his life. 

Old Colquhoun whipped another pan of 
cakes out of the oven, then picked up two of 
the fluffiest and most golden ones in the first 
heap, and crossed the room to a dog who was 
lying in a corner with puppies around her. 
Just at the same moment, Michael caught sight 
of the puppies; he bounded across the room 
with a cry of joy, and just had his hand on the 
softest and wriggliest one, that sent shivers of 
delight all through him, when he heard a savage 
growl, and next thing he knew he had been 
jerked by his collar into the middle of the floor, 
and old Colquhoun was standing over him 
panting with excitement. 

“Ha’e ye nae sense?” he demanded. “Ye 
daurna touch a puppy o’ Jessie’s. Mon, she 

101 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

nearly bit ye! I wouldna for onything ha’e 
ma auld Jessie get into trouble. She’s a gey 
canny auld lassie,” he said, crossing the room 
again and laying his hand with respectful 
tenderness on the dog’s head, “but her temper’s 
no sweet. Noo, Colin!” he added sharply, 
turning around. Colin came crouching up to 
him, his eyes fixed on the cakes, smiling and 
wagging his tail. Jessie sat up, showing a 
lovely white shirt front that distracted Mi- 
chael’s attention from the puppies for a mo- 
ment, and with solemn dignity caught bite after 
bite of cake, smacking her lips loudly over each 
one, as if she understood that she was assisting 
in Cohn’s punishment. Michael meanwhile 
was watching the puppies as they rolled help- 
lessly about, and his whole being was filled with 
a consuming longing to have one of those yel- 
low, fluffy bits of loveliness in his own hands, 
but he had no hope of its being gratified — and 
to such a small, vivid person as Michael, an 
ungratified longing was acute agony. But 
when Colquhoun had finished the deliberate ad- 
ministration of cake to Jessie, he went up to 
102 


THE FAIRY ROAD 


her in that tenderly respectful manner Michael 
had noticed before. 

“Will ye let me ha’e a puppy for a wee?” 
he asked. “Ye ken ye can trust your master.” 

J essie let him pick up a puppy, and he slowly 
and solemnly deposited it in MichaeFs arms. 
“Oh!” cried Michael. He spent a few minutes 
of utter rapture, while it wriggled and kicked 
and flopped its dear little paws about, and 
poked around with its funny little nose. But 
after old Colquhoun took it back Michael was 
conscious of another imperative desire. He 
must some day have a puppy of his very own. 

“Weel, I’m glad ye cam’,” remarked old 
Colquhoun, “for an extra mouth to eat up the 
cakes is no sic’ a bad thing. I dinna like them 
stale. Here, tak’ those and eat them on the 
way hame.” 

He gave Michael three cakes, and for some 
time this bliss put even puppies out of his head. 
He consumed one slowly as he walked along 
the path at the foot of the hill, for he liked to 
make his pleasures last, and besides, it was as 
nice to look at as it was to eat, and he would 
103 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


be sorry to see the last of that beautiful colour. 
To be sure, there were two more — but it sud- 
denly occurred to him that Susan and Nieder 
might like them, and for a little while a sharp 
struggle went on in his mind. Then he reso- 
lutely thrust the two cakes deep into his pocket, 
and ran along the little path to the bank of 
snow the sleds ran into. They were coming 
downhill now, and presently Susan and Nieder 
were precipitated into the bank. When they 
scrambled out, and saw Michael, they asked 
him where he had been. 

‘T’ve been to old Colquhoun’s. He gave 
me some cakes, and here’s one for each of you,” 
Michael replied, as he hastily held out the cakes, 
determined to get this arduous duty done at 
once. When Susan and Nieder had got 
started munching the cakes they did not seem 
disposed to ask any more questions, but Mi- 
chael continued: — “He didn't plough the Fairy 
Road!” 

“Michael!” exclaimed Susan, in the utmost 
astonishment. “Do you know, my father 
didn’t, and neither did Nieder’s!” 

104 


THE FAIRY ROAD 


‘‘I knew they didn’t. I thought mine might 
have, but he didn’t.” 

“Then it must have been fairies, when it 
wasn’t people,” Nieder had to admit reluc- 
tantly, between mouthfuls of cake. 

“Of course. Old Colquhoun said it was 
fairies.” 

“I don’t see how fairies could plough a path,” 
said Susan. 

“But they did,” said Michael. 

“What is old Colquhoun hke?” inquired Su- 
san. 

“Well,” said Michael, reflectively, “he’s very 
like a bear.” 

“Like the great big bear?” asked Susan ea- 
gerly. 

“No — he’s not big enough for the great big 
bear, and he’s too big for the little bear. He’s 
more hke the middle-sized bear.” 

“Father says he’s very queer,” said Susan. 

“Yes,” replied Michael. “He’s queer. He 
wears an apron. But he’s nice. I’m going to 
see him again.” 


105 


CHAPTER VIII 


CHRISTMAS 

About this time Michael’s father began to tell 
him a different sort of story as they sat to- 
gether in the glow of the firelight before the 
time came to go to bed. It was not about fair- 
ies; it was about something much more wonder- 
ful, and somehow Michael never could get quite 
to the dehcious heart of the wonder. He 
thought about it a great deal after he went to 
bed at night, and any time he happened to be 
alone and quiet during the day. He tried to 
get to the heart of it, as he always tried to get to 
the heart of any joy or pain, and extract from 
it the uttermost sensation — impelled by a sort 
of instinct to find out exactly how good or how 
bad a thing was; but he could not with this. 
Every time he thought of the angels coming 
to the shepherds, and the star guiding the wise 
men to the stable where the Child was, he felt 
hushed all over by a vast, sweet wonder. He 
106 


CHRISTMAS 


wanted his father to tell him more and more 
about the mysterious Child, who was just a 
little boy like him or Nieder, and yet so differ- 
ent, His father was always very willing to 
tell him; but one day he began to tell about the 
wicked Herod, and his efforts to find and kill 
J esus, and the flight into Egypt. Michael sud- 
denly burst out sobbing, and begged his father 
not to tell him any more. He felt he could not 
bear it, if Herod overtook and killed Jesus. 
He had a picture in his mind of Jesus wander- 
ing away alone, among flowers and bushes, un- 
hurried and unafraid, in the aimless innocent 
way that he or Nieder would wander in the 
woods; utterly helpless as they would be, and 
this cruel pursuer, who could so easily find 
Him — oh, he could not bear it! Not for some 
time afterwards did Michael’s father find out 
why he begged so passionately not to be told 
any more. He was puzzled, and stopped tell- 
ing those stories for awhile, and dwelt on the 
other side of Christmas. He talked of Santa 
Claus, and asked Michael what he would like 
him to bring. Michael replied, looking up 
107 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

with eager shining eyes: — ‘‘Oh, I’d like him to 
bring me a little puppy!” 

“A httle puppy,” his father replied thought- 
fully. “What sort of puppy?” 

“A yellow fluffy one hke old Colquhoun’s !” 
cried Michael. 

Michael’s father saw some difficulties in 
Santa Claus’ road that little people cannot 
understand, but the look in his boy’s eyes went 
far toward deciding him that they must be 
overcome ; however, his reply was cautious. “I 
don’t think I ever heard of Santa Claus bring- 
ing a puppy,” he said. “He may, of course, 
but it would be very hard to carry one all that 
way and keep it warm.” 

“He could put it under his coat,” said Mi- 
chael. 

“So he could. Well, he may find he can 
bring it, but don’t be too sure.” 

“I want one so much! I don’t want any- 
thing but a puppy. Oh, yes, I want a toucan, 
but that is something I can find for myself.” 

“Couldn’t you find a puppy in the same 
way?” inquired his father, smiling. 

108 


CHRISTMAS 


“No. I want a real puppj,’’ was Michael’s 
decided answer. 

“Very likely Santa Claus can pick up some 
kind of a puppy, but he may not be able to 
find one like old Colquhoun’s,” replied his 
father. 

Susan and Nieder began to talk about 
Christmas and Santa Claus too. Nieder 
wanted a mouth organ, and “much candy.” 
Nieder generally wanted something to make 
a noise with, or something to eat. Susan’s 
wish surprised Michael. “I want Santa Claus 
to bring me a mister doll — a knittity one,” she 
said. 

“I thought dolls were all shes!” exclaimed 
Michael. 

“No, mother showed me a china doll she had 
when she was a little girl, that was a he. She 
called him Sheppy. But he wore skirts just 
like a she,” Susan added contemptuously. “I 
want a knittity one with no clothes on at all, 
that we can take up to the Rebel’s House. We 
need an extra he to do things.” 

“I don’t see why we need a knittity doll. I 
109 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


can get all the hes I want out of the woods,” 
replied Michael. 

‘T’m so tired of that kind! I never know 
where they are. I want a knittity doll, so I 
can see just what he is doing.” 

“He would be fine,” agreed Nieder heartily. 

“I don’t see the use of him, but if you want 
him as badly as I want my puppy, I hope you’ll 
get him,” rephed Michael. 

The wonderful evening came at last, and 
Michael looked doubtfully at his little socks as 
he hung them up. “I don’t see how Santa 
Claus could get a puppy into them,” he said 
tragically. 

“He’ll tie them to the puppy’s tail, and hang 
him up that way,” said his father. “That is^ — 
if he brings him, Michael.” 

The reluctant smile that this joke coaxed 
out vanished at that last awful hint. “Oh — I 
hope he’ll bring him,” said Michael. 

“We’ll get things all ready, anyway. Sup- 
pose I fix a basket between those two socks. 
Then the puppy will be quite comfortable.” 

After Michael was tucked into bed, his father 
110 


CHRISTMAS 


remarked:^ — ‘T think I’ll go out for a walk. 
Perhaps I’ll catch a glimpse of Santa Claus, 
and I’ll look to see if his coat is bulgy. But 
you must be asleep when I come back, or if 
you’re not, you mustn’t open your eyes or ask 
me any questions.” 

Michael fell asleep long before his father 
came back, excited though he was. He fell 
asleep wondering if he would awaken to the 
tragedy of an empty basket, or if Santa Claus 
were even now on the way, with a bulgy spot 
in his coat. 

It was dawn when he awoke. The basket 
was hanging beside the fireplace, suspended by 
the two little socks. He just couldn’t see over 
the edge. He sat up; he could just catch a 
glimpse of something fluffy — and yellow — only 
the faintest glimpse, but enough to fill his whole 
small being with tremors of delight. He stood 
up. There, curled into a soft ball in the basket, 
was a dear httle yellow thing, just exactly hke 
the one that had wriggled in his arms for those 
few memorable moments in Colquhoun’s 
kitchen. It was there. There could be no 
HI 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

doubt about it. A real puppy, to hold and 
fondle just as much as ever he hked! 

That morning was full of the most vivid, 
satisfying bliss. Michael could think of noth- 
ing but his puppy. How he hugged and 
fondled him, and burrowed his cheek into his 
hair, and rolled him over and over and made 
him flourish his dear little paws, and with what 
delight he fed him! How indignant he was 
when his father suggested Muichin^ which 
means Piggy, as a suitable name 1 With what 
grave, exasperating persistence his father stuck 
to this outrageous idea, and refused to consider 
the possibihty of calling the puppy anything 
else ! Only Michael felt sure, down in the bot- 
tom of his heart, that when he had found a nice 
enough name — if he ever could And one nice 
enough — his father would not insist on Mu- 
ichin. 

There was a sudden momentary check to this 
bliss at noon, when his father said:^ — “Now, 
Michael, we must get dressed and go over to 
Nieder’s. His father and mother have asked 
us to Christmas dinner.” 

112 


CHRISTMAS 


“Oh, can’t we stay at home?” begged Mi- 
chael. 

“Why? You know you always enjoy going 
there.” 

“I don’t want to leave the puppy!” 

“He’ll be all right. We can feed him last 
thing, and when they hear him gobbling they 
will know we are ready to start. He won’t 
need anything more till we get back.” 

“I can't leave my puppy the very first day!” 
cried Michael, picking him up and cuddling 
him close. 

“I don’t believe they would mind if we bring 
him along,” his father said, after a moment’s 
deliberation. 

Then all Michael’s joy surged back with re- 
doubled force. He felt so proud, taking his 
puppy out to dinner. It was a kingly thing 
to be doing! Any especially delightful thing, 
that made him feel big and grand, was kingly, 
in Michael’s vocabulary. 

Nieder’s mother admired the puppy enthu- 
siastically, and Nieder’s father rolled him over 
on his back once or twice and called him a 
113 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

dear little toad, and Nieder found him such an 
excellent plaything that he actually forgot to 
exhibit his mouth organ to Michael, till he was 
reminded. It would have been well if he had 
not been reminded, for Michael thought it was 
horrid, and said so with the candour char- 
acteristic of gentlemen of his tender years. 
This made Nieder angry, and they had a 
violent quarrel, and were not on speaking 
terms for half an hour; but the Christmas din- 
ner proved a peacemaker. Michael thought 
Nieder’s father and the fat turkey looked very 
much alike, and for the first time that day his 
mind was diverted from his puppy. He be- 
came suddenly aware that he was desperately 
hungry, for he had been so excited at breakfast 
time he had barely touched his porridge. He 
coidduft sit and wait for that turkey to be 
carved (a process which would never come to 
an end, he thought) and all those grown 
people to be helped, without wriggling and 
kicking, which he knew was bad manners. He 
had a keen sense of smell, and the fragrance 
of the turkey made the situation quite intoler- 
114 


CHRISTMAS 


able. ‘‘I don’t like dinner here,” he burst out 
at last. ‘‘I like it at home, where there is no- 
body else to be helped first.” 

His father was covered with confusion and 
humiliation at this remark. Such sentiments 
were quite unworthy of Michael. At home, 
he comported himself like a little gentleman, 
which he was to the marrow of his bones ; why 
should he so suddenly do violence to his own 
nature, and burst out before those kind neigh- 
bours with sentiments appropriate nowhere but 
in the henyard or the pigsty? It was a most 
painful anomaly to his father, who blushed up 
to the roots of his hair, and blurted out in- 
coherent apologies for Michael. “He was too 
excited to eat his breakfast — ^he must be 
hungrier than usual — I never knew him to act 
so before — ” 

“Poor little man!” said Nieder’s mother, in 
a tone so warm and sympathetic that Michael’s 
father felt a little eased. It showed that she 
understood that they were not really monsters 
of ingratitude for a hospitality which had 
touched him to the heart, coming from stran- 
115 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


gers this first forlorn Christmas in the new 
country. 

After this outbreak, Michael was very good ; 
the reproof he got from his father was effec- 
tive. His father had merely looked at him, 
and said: — “Shame on you, Michael!” but that 
was quite enough. Perhaps it was because his 
father’s reproofs were rare and brief that they 
had such an effect when they came. They 
gave him a blighted feeling all over, especially 
down his legs. Experience had taught him 
that he got over this feeling and got quite 
happy again, but it was most unpleasant while 
it lasted^ — so unpleasant, that each time he 
called it down on himself he had a passionate 
ambition that this time should be the last. He 
only committed one more breach during that 
meal. He was blissfully picking his turkey 
bone, when the notion suddenly came to him to 
do what he had seen a hen do once, with a big 
crust in her mouth that stuck out a long way on 
each side. He put the bone in his mouth, and 
turned his head rapidly from side to side as he 
had seen the hen do; but his father had only to 
116 


CHRISTMAS 


say: — ‘‘Michael!” in a low tone, to stop him. 
He looked up wonderingly for an explanation 
of this prohibition. What harm could there 
be in doing as the hen did? But his father 
began to talk to Nieder’s father, and took no 
more notice of him, and he resolved to try 
no more experiments. He had got Nieder 
started on the downward path, however, and 
Nieder, if harder to start, was also harder to 
stop. He began by shouting with laughter 
over MichaeFs gesture, then he imitated it, and 
continued to imitate it for some time, in spite 
of his parents’ united protests. When he had 
at last been persuaded to desist, he began 
growling: — “Waoo waoo waoo,” over his bone, 
like the cat, and this was so irresistibly funny, 
that it required a great deal of self-restraint 
on Michael’s part to keep from joining in, but 
he resolutely resisted the temptation. 

After dinner, his pent-up high spirits broke 
loose in wild romps with Nieder and the puppy 
out in the kitchen, which lasted till it was time 
to go home. As he and his father were on 
their way there, he suddenly announced: — “I 
117 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


want to go and see Susan and show her my 
puppy, and she wanted a knittity doll. I want 
to see if she got one.” 

So they turned in Susan’s gate instead of 
their own. Neither of them had ever been in 
Susan’s house before. Michael was familiar 
with its exterior. It was a big, old looking 
house, something like the Rebel’s House, but 
not nearly so nice. “Isn’t it a big, solemn 
looking house for Susan to live in?” he asked, 
as they approached. 

“It is,” his father agreed, remembering that 
lively and artful little person as she was the 
day he had encountered her in Nieder’s house. 

Michael discovered another point of infe- 
riority to the Rebel’s House as they approached 
the door. There was a knocker, but there was 
no lion’s head on it. Perhaps Michael could 
not have given any other definite reason for its 
general inferiority; the secret of it was that 
the inhabitants were real people. 

Susan opened the door, and Michael noticed 
first thing that she had a knittity doll with no 
clothes on, all striped red and white, dangling 
118 


CHRISTMAS 


from her hand. ‘‘Oh, you got your knittity!” 
he exclaimed. “Here’s my puppy; isn’t he a 
beauty?” 

“Merry Christmas, Michael,” said Susan, 
with a gracious smile, and overlooking Mi- 
chael’s impetuous lack of ceremony in the most 
dignified manner. “I suppose this is your 
father. How do you do, Mr. — Mr.^ — Mr. 
So-and-So? Please come in. Mother and 
father will be so glad to see you.” 

“You haven’t looked at my puppy!” cried 
Michael indignantly, thrusting him at Susan. 

But not till she had finished the weighty and 
responsible business of ushering them into the 
sitting room, and introducing them to her 
mother (a pale, ordinary looking person, Mi- 
chael thought) would Susan occupy her mind 
with anything so frivolous as a puppy. After 
that she was enthusiastic, and cuddled the 
puppy tight, declaring he was “perfectly 
sweet.” Then she exhibited, her profusion of 
gifts, which were strewn everywhere around 
the room. None of them were of any interest 
to Michael, except the knittity. He could not 
119 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

understand her delight in a box of paper dolls, 
which she showed off to him with the utmost 
pride till his patience was quite worn out, and 
he turned away to examine a most alluring 
what-not full of sea shells, and could not be 
persuaded to admire the doll’s tea-set Susan 
was wild with delight over, or the coral neck- 
lace that adorned her. While she was trying 
to attract his attention to these things, the 
puppy got hold of the knittity, and both chil- 
dren made a wild scramble to his rescue. Mi- 
chael caught the puppy by the scruff of the 
neck and shook him so roughly that he dropped 
the knittity at once, and Susan snatched him 
up. ‘Ts he hurt?” asked Michael anxiously. 

“No, I don’t believe he is,” said Susan 
proudly, examining the gaily striped body with 
care. “He was meant to stand everything, 
you know, so we can take him up to the Rebel’s 
House.” 

“He wasn’t meant to stand puppies’ teeth,” 
said Susan’s mother. “He will tear, you know, 
though he won’t break.” 

“I won’t let the puppy touch him again,” 
120 


CHRISTMAS 


said Michael. He had taken a strong fancy 
to the knittity. His nakedness, his stripes, 
his short, kinky black hair, the look of bold- 
ness and impassivity in a countenance consist- 
ing solely of pale pink yarn, with two black 
beads for eyes, a pinched spot for a nose, and 
a red line for a mouth, gave him the appear- 
ance of a person who would go through all 
adventures with equal imperturbability^ — and 
much was required of the heroes in the Rebel’s 
House! 

“What is his name?” Michael asked. 

“Mr. Musteed,” said Susan. “He got mar- 
ried to the Musteed this morning.” 

“Who is the Musteed?” 

“Why, surely you know her. She is my 
other knittity doll — the she, with the blue and 
yellow clothes on.” Susan jumped up, ran 
away and got the Musteed, and stood her up 
beside her husband. Just then her father 
came in. 

“Hello,” he exclaimed as he stumbled over 
the puppy, “Where did this beast come 
from?” 


121 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


‘‘That is my puppy,” said Michael with 
dignity. 

“Oh — you’re here? Have a nice Christ- 
mas?” 

“Yes,” said Michael. “Here is my father.” 

Susan’s father made some rough apologies 
for not having seen and greeted Michael’s 
father at first. They had a long talk after 
that, and it was only when it was time to go 
that Susan’s father remembered his full duty 
as host, which required him to make some jocu- 
lar remark to Michael. 

“Look out that puppy of yours doesn’t take 
to killin’ sheep when he grows up,” he said. 

“My puppy will never do anything bad,” 
Michael retorted indignantly. 

“H’m! Perhaps he’ll be deep enough never 
to let you know if he does. They’re a rum lot, 
those collies — you never can trust them. I 
wouldn’t be paid to own one. If he kills a 
sheep, remember, he will have to be shot!” 

“I’ll never let any one shoot him! I’ll shoot 
any one who tries!” cried Michael, his eyes 
suddenly blazing with anger. 

122 


CHRISTMAS 


‘‘Then a policeman will pick you up and 
carry you off to jail, and keep you there for the 
rest of your life,” replied Susan’s father. 

This was the most awful prospect that could 
have been held out to Michael, yet he resolved 
to face it, rather than let his puppy be shot; 
but just at this point, he noticed that Susan 
was laughing, so he knew it must all be a joke. 
He forced a smile then, although he could not 
see any fun in that sort of joke. 

“I didn’t know you were trying to be funny, 
till I saw Susan laughing,” he explained. 

Susan’s father looked at him, then he burst 
into a roar of mirth, which was extremely 
puzzling to Michael. He could not see what 
anybody could find to laugh at in such a simple 
statement of fact. “Susan says her father 
says old Colquhoun is queer,” he remarked re- 
flectively on the way home, “but I think he is 
queerer himself.” 

When he was being tucked into bed that 
night, he said with a great sigh of thankful- 
ness:^ — “I’m so glad I’m not Susan’s father’s 
little boy!” 


123 


CHAPTER IX 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 

It was a great event to Michael to go to town, 
which happened only once in several months. 
Susan was inclined to laugh at his excitement 
over the trip, for she went once a week, and to 
her it was only a long, tedious drive with a still 
more tedious session in church at the end. Her 
parents were so convinced of the importance 
of a regular attendance at church, that they 
sacrificed their Sunday morning’s rest, and 
were all ready to start by nine o’clock, which 
brought them to civilisation just in time. The 
benefit Susan derived from this pious practice 
may be inferred from a complaint she once 
made to Michael that ‘^they have changed the 
minister and got one with a loud voice, who 
wakens me up,” and she graphically illustrated 
his shouts and gestures, prancing about the 
landing in the Rebel’s House as she had seen 
124 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 


him prance about the pulpit, causing Michael 
and Nieder to regard the race of ministers in 
anything but a reverential manner. 

Michael did not wonder that Susan was not 
fond of trips to town, under those circum- 
stances; his trips were widely different. He 
and his father had one about a month after 
Christmas. This was a bright, cold morning, 
and Michael thought it great fun to be packed 
into the big sleigh, with his puppy beside him 
and a brick at his feet ; they were both wrapped 
up so snug and tight that they could hardly 
stir, then his father got in beside them and 
they were off along the silent, deserted road. 
Michael delighted in the gliding, swaying mo- 
tion of the sleigh; he laughed for pure joy, and 
cuddled his puppy close. But it must be ad- 
mitted that the first freshness of this delight 
wore off ; his active little limbs grew intolerably 
weary of the continued inaction, and it was 
hard to kick and squirm in his wrappings, and 
the puppy grew restless, too. He began to 
ask his father impatiently: — ‘‘When are we 
going to get there?” and so endless did the 
125 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

monotony of snow and sun and sleighbells, 
and long, lonely road, seem, that he would not 
have been in the least surprised if his father 
had replied — ‘‘We’ll never get there.” How- 
ever, they did, after a long, long time. 
“Town” with them did not mean the metrop- 
olis ; there was no metropolis within easy 
reach. Neither did it mean the mixed up as- 
sembly of houses, each one rakish, careless or 
squalid in a distinctly individual manner, 
scrambled about over hilly streets or huddling 
in hollows, amid a delightful confusion of 
noisy children, dogs, pigs, and calves, with the 
occasional excitement of a fight to bring the 
habitual tumult to a head, and the eternal calm 
of the monastery gardens for a contrast, which 
had been known as “the town” in those far 
away Irish days. As they drove into the 
straight, quiet streets of this town, with the 
rows of houses all looking so solemn and well- 
behaved, and not a sound to break the wintry 
stillness, Michael turned a wondering pair of 
eyes up to his father. “Is it just monks and 
nuns who hve here?” he asked. 

126 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 


“No indeed. There are no monks or nuns 
here at all. The Sacsanaigh don’t have monks 
or nuns,” his father replied. 

“Is it the Sacsanaigh who hve here?” 

“Mostly people whose fathers and grand- 
fathers were Sacsanaigh.” 

They drove up to the door of a store, and 
got out, the puppy frisking with delight at this 
welcome release. His father had a great many 
groceries to buy, and Michael and the puppy 
amused themselves inhaling the delicious odour 
that pervaded the store. The principal ingre- 
dients were coffee and onions, and perhaps the 
odour would not have appealed to cultivated 
nostrils, but it is doubtful which of those two 
primitive creatures inhaled it with the keener 
relish. They wandered up and down the 
store, the puppy making friends with the other 
customers, and at last Michael said to a man 
who stood waiting to be served — “Are there 
any fights in town to-day?” 

“Fights?” exclaimed the man, as if he did 
not know what fights were, and had never 
heard of them. 


127 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

‘Tights,” repeated Michael with vigour and 
distinctness. 

“We don’t have fights here, unless a few 
fellows get full,” replied the man, as if this 
were a circumstance to be proud of. 

“What do they get full of?” inquired Mi- 
chael. 

The man made some funny sounds in his 
throat. “Never you mind, and see you never 
find out,” was his enigmatical reply. 

Michael stared at him for a moment, be- 
wildered and curious. Then he said:^ — “Why 
do they have to get full before they fight?” 

“Because they don’t fight if they know what 
they’re doing, of course.” 

“Do they not want to fight?” exclaimed Mi- 
chael, in astonishment. 

“We’re not spoiling for fights around these 
diggings. I’ll take a pound of coffee,” the 
man said abruptly to an approaching clerk. 

Michael was silent and reflective during the 
rest of the tedious period in which his father 
was laying in a store of groceries for the next 
128 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 


few months. Wliatever could be the use of 
a town where there were no fights? And why 
were there none of those lovely silent gardens, 
into which you could slip if you were looked 
on with favour by their grey, noiseless-footed 
inhabitants, and steep yourself in sunshine and 
fragrance, away from the jarring noises of the 
outer world? 

But these reflections were soon banished by 
the tyrannical pangs of hunger, overriding 
every other thought and sensation. Only 
after they had had a good lunch at a hotel did 
his mind once more become active in other 
directions. They went to another store after- 
wards, to get oats for the horses, and wheat 
for the hens, and bran for the cow; then they 
went to the postoffice, and while they were 
there a train came in. That commonplace 
event was a wonderful phenomenon to Michael. 
He stood gazing as it ground along over the 
frosty rails, his whole small frame throbbing 
in sympathy with its mighty pulsations, his 
soul swallowed up in the hideous but majes- 
129 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


tic tumult. The shrieks and grating groans, 
the overwhelming explosions of the escaping 
steam, set him on edge, made him want to 
scream and snarl in a passionate revolt; and 
yet he was fascinated. There was something 
in the beat of the piston that filled him with a 
delicious excitement, made him feel big, and 
strong, and “kingly.” He wanted to know 
all about the wonderful thing. The bell began 
to ring presently, and he knew that meant 
it was going to start. Just at that moment 
he caught sight of his puppy, who had wan- 
dered away from him unobserved. The little 
soft, wriggling form was right between those 
great wheels. He had scarcely seen this, be- 
fore he was off the platform, and had him in 
his arms; and scarcely had this happened, be- 
fore he felt his father’s hands grabbing him, 
and he and the puppy were back on the plat- 
form, his father clasping them tight. They 
were clasped much tighter than was comfort- 
able; his father’s chest was heaving strangely, 
and Michael knew he was violently agitated. 
“I’ve got him quite safe,” he said. 

130 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 


“Oh, Michael!” was all the reply his father 
could make. 

Michael had always wanted to do something 
brave — to be a patriot and kill the wicked Sac- 
sanaigh who made the Eirionnaigh unhappy, 
or to be a sailor, or kill a lion; but it never 
occurred to him that he had done anything 
particularly brave in saving his puppy from 
under the wheels of an engine. If Susan’s 
father had again accosted him as the wonder- 
ful Michael, he would again have replied, re- 
gretfully, that he had never done anything 
wonderful. He was conscious of no mental 
process whatever between the moment he saw 
the precious creature between the wheels, and 
the moment when he felt the soft body in his 
hands. He had not thought — “I will save 
Iiim,” or “I must save him.” He had simply 
saved him, without even knowing he was doing 
it until afterward. 

All the way home he cuddled the puppy 
close, and snuggled his face down often beside 
the little head that stuck out of the wrappings. 
"'A stoinn mo chroidheT (little treasure of 

131 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


my heart) he kept crooning into the dear 
hairy ears. ‘T couldn't do without him!” he 
told his father once. 

He took a passionate interest in trains for 
some time after this. He asked his father long 
strings of questions about them at every meal, 
till he had a fairly clear idea of their mechanism, 
the perils they encountered, the precautions 
their engineers and conductors and flagmen 
had to take to avoid wrecks. He forgot that 
he had ever wanted to be a patriot or a sailor 
or a lion killer; the one consuming desire of 
his heart was to be an engineer. As that de- 
sire could not be immediately gratifled, the 
next best thing was to play at trains every 
day in the Rebel’s House, for as long as Su- 
san and Nieder could be prevailed on to do 
it. The old sofa where the corn-cobs lay in 
a row was converted into a train containing 
passengers by the simple process of setting 
the corn-cobs up against the back, with Mr. 
Musteed at one end for engineer. A soap- 
box was set opposite it; Susan was packed in 
(she was a tight fit) and Michael, standing in 
132 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 


front, was engine and engineer in one. He 
imitated the whistle as well as he could in his 
clear musical voice, and rang a bell. A plank 
between the two trains represented a bridge, 
and Nieder, standing on this plank, was the 
flagman, who vainly waved a stick with a red 
flag at the end. The engineers tried their 
best to stop, and Mr. Musteed succeeded, but 
Michael was on a down grade and could not 
check his progress by the most violent efforts. 
Everybody behaved with the utmost gallantry; 
the flagman did not abandon his post till Mi- 
chael’s train had almost crashed into Mr. Mus- 
teed’s, and there was just time to jump; Mi- 
chael’s passengers, in the person of Susan, sat 
with clasped hands and head held high, wear- 
ing an expression of the noblest heroism, 
awaiting their fate ; Mr. Musteed’s passengers 
maintained an equal, if less impressive calm; 
when the crash came, trains and passengers 
were immediately dumped into the river, and 
it happened to be just at the rapids (the com- 
bination engine and engineer overturned the 
soap-box, and the flagman overturned the 
133 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


sofa). Most heroically did those engineers 
battle with the current, and they were sucked 
under in the act of rescuing their passengers 
again and again; but they always succeeded 
finally in rescuing every one. Sometimes Nie- 
der was the combination engine and engineer 
of the soap-box, and Michael was the runaway 
engine, dashing into him from the other side 
of the room and knocking him over most un- 
mercifully; or else Michael was the exploding 
engine. His explosions were a continual 
source of wonder to Susan and Nieder, who 
could not get half the amount of noise out of 
their lungs together, that he could unaided. 
As soon as the explosion took place Susan 
leaped up as high as she could, flung the soap- 
box across the room with a crash, and then 
fell down on her face and waited to be rescued 
by the exploded engine in his capacity of 
engineer. 

But the next trip to town was so rich in new 
experiences that it put trains completely out 
of Michael’s head. This one took place on a 
beautiful May morning — a morning when Mi- 
134 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 

chael had been tingling and dancing with joy in 
every nerve from the moment he awoke. He 
was ready for any delight that might offer 
itself ; so when he had to climb up into the front 
seat of the big green waggon, and inhale the 
odour of horse and harness, and look down 
from his eminence on Brian Boroimhe (who 
was growing up into a dog now, and had a 
name at last) exclaiming mischievously: — 
“How small he looks away down there!” he 
thought there could be no greater height of 
happiness. Then they rumbled off, out of the 
gate and down the hill, Michael shouting good- 
bye to Susan as they passed her in her father’s 
field, Brian bounding after them. He had got 
past the cuddly stage now, but he was much 
more serviceable as a playfellow. He could 
race, and he and Michael could play tug of 
war with a rope, and it was all Michael could 
do to hold his own against him. Needless to 
say, these trials of strength were a keen delight 
to both of them. Brian’s head and nose were 
lengthening out, and the white streak on the 
top of his head was narrowing down till Mi- 
135 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


chael saw, with regret, that it would ultimately 
disappear. He hated to see any of Brian’s 
attributes disappear; every bit of him was pre- 
cious. On the other hand, the white round his 
neck was widening. Michael was proud of 
that white collar and shirt front, and was dis- 
tressed on rainy mornings when it got all 
muddy and soiled. But it was beautifully 
white this morning. “Everybody in town will 
wish they had a dog like him!” he exclaimed 
joyfully, as they rumbled down the hill. 

When they got on to the river road, Mi- 
chael had the joy of driving for awhile. This 
was a magical joy; the only drawback was 
that he could not hold the reins carelessly and 
easily, between the thumb and fingers of one 
hand, as his father did. For him, the inexor- 
able rule was: — “One rein in each hand.” He 
would have felt so much bigger, so much 
grander, if he could have held them that other 
way, as if guiding a horse were a mere in- 
cident to him. 

The road did not seem a bit too long this 
time; for one thing, there were so many nice 
136 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 

smells all the way. There were moist, cool 
smells, suggestive of brooks in the woods and 
splashing and puddling in bare feet; there 
were warm, piny smells that seemed to tingle 
through you with the restless dehght of spring; 
there were whiffs of violets. Always, on one 
side, there was the great, sunlit river; on the 
other, there were sometimes woods, in the re- 
cesses of which anything wonderful might be 
concealed. Michael always peered eagerly 
into their dim mystery as he passed. Some- 
times there were steep banks, with patches of 
violets, or stretches of dandelion-sprinkled 
grass upon them; sometimes there were wide 
green fields. Brian poked along, deeply in- 
terested in every inch of the road, sniffing, 
burrowing, the pose of his ears and tail show- 
ing his absorption. Michael wriggled about, 
and swung his legs, and leaned out over the 
wheel in a most dangerous manner, when any- 
thing special attracted his attention, and with 
eyes, ears, nose and imagination all alert, en- 
joyed himself in every fibre of his being. 
Sometimes he subsided into intervals of 
137 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


dreamy quiet, letting the spring sun steep him 
to the heart; after one of these intervals he 
looked up into his father’s face, saying: — 
‘Tsn’t it nice to be happy?” 

He would have liked to go on and on along 
that road, and never stop, but they came to the 
town at last. The gardens were full of red 
and yellow flowers, glowing in the sun, and 
when they came out of the grocery store with 
their purchases the air was pervaded with the 
smell of people’s dinners, which set Michael’s 
appetite on edge, so they got their dinner be- 
fore they did any more shopping. Michael 
got very tired of the shopping. He enlivened 
it in one store by scraping acquaintance with 
another little boy who came in while he was 
there, and that was very pleasant while it 
lasted. He told him all about Brian, and 
about coming out from Ireland with his father 
the year before, and the house they built for 
themselves. The boy patted Brian, stared, 
and said:^ — “Gee!” which Michael supposed 
was the English equivalent of "'Maiseadhr or 
"'Ach aidheT and accordingly he made use of 
138 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 


it in polite conversation with Susan’s mother 
a few days later. In return, the boy informed 
him that he had had scarlet fever, and had 
changed his skin; which caused Michael’s eyes 
to become even bigger than usual, and he re- 
garded the boy as a wonderful and curious 
being. But the interview was all too short, 
for after fifteen minutes’ conversation the boy 
suddenly exclaimed: — “Jimminy! Ma said I 
had to be back in five minutes with a spool of 
white silk thread, and now she’ll be chewing 
the rag like mad !” 

‘‘She’ll what?” exclaimed Michael in a tone 
of lively interest. He always was interested 
in new words and expressions. But the boy 
had already turned to the clerk, and in another 
minute had bolted out of the store, leaving Mi- 
chael with an enlarged vocabulary. 

There was nothing to relieve the tedium 
after this till they went to the shoe store, and 
there Michael suddenly became mischievous, 
and had his father and the clerk at their wits’ 
end before he was finally provided with a pair 
of new shoes. Once he was settled in the wag- 
139 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

gon to go home he subsided, and was very 
quiet all the way. It was late by this time, 
and the low sun made a glow of light on the 
river; as he was on the side of the waggon 
next it, he watched it all the way home. The 
mystery of the river gripped his heart. It 
stretched away so far — right to the edge of the 
world, where the sky came down and joined it 
— ^where the sunset glowed like birds of para- 
dise, or toucans’ breasts. What wonderful re- 
gions did it not flow through ? He made up his 
mind that some day he would have a boat, and 
sail up that river till he got to where the sky 
joined the world. He would And fairies, 
lions, toucans — all the wonderful things he 
could never find at home. Just then he saw 
something black on the water, against the glow 
of the sky. He watched it with passionate 
eagerness. It was getting bigger, — and com- 
ing nearer; it was one of the wonderful things 
out of the unknown regions! Presently a 
faint sound of music came to his ears. “Oh, 
Father, what is that?” he asked breathlessly. 

140 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 


‘T think it’s a lumberman’s raft,” his father 
replied. 

‘T thought it was some fairy thing, and I 
thought it might be a toucan swimming along 
and singing,” said Michael, a little disap- 
pointed. But a lumberman’s raft was by no 
means devoid of glamour. For one thing, Mi- 
chael had very little idea what a raft was, 
and he watched its approach with great curi- 
osity. The singing became more distinct; a 
hearty, rhythmic chorus that haunted Michael 
pleasantly for days afterwards. They met 
and passed the raft. Michael surveyed with 
eager interest the great timbers bound to- 
gether, the rough, dirty group of men that 
stood on them, singing. Their appearance 
would not have prepossessed him under any 
other circumstances; but they came from the 
edge of the world, he had seen them with his 
own eyes emerge from the sunset, therefore 
they must have dimnk deep draughts of the 
wonders he hungered and thirsted for. And 
what joy to be paddling a raft down a river! 

141 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


“I’m going to be a lumberman just as soon 
as I’m big enough I” he announced to his father. 

“Are you?” said his father, smiling. He 
had heard Michael announce before, with the 
same decision, at different periods, that he was 
going to be a patriot, and a sailor, and an 
engineer. 

His father was put through the same sort 
of catechism about lumbermen that he had been 
put through about engineers, with the result 
that Mr. Musteed changed his occupation. 
Five or six times a day he sailed down the 
brook in the woods on a raft, while Michael 
sang for him the song he had heard on the 
river; he so frequently fell off liis raft into 
the brook that he became a most disreputable 
looking object. His red stripes faded out, so 
did the red line that indicated his mouth; be- 
sides, he got so full of mud and sand that he 
could not be shaken, beaten, or washed quite 
clean; but the more war->vorn he became, the 
more highly valued he was by Michael. Every 
fresh disfiguration was a mark of faithful serv- 
ice, and brought him closer to Michael’s heart. 

142 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 


He had many adventures besides those trifling 
ones of getting wrecked with his engine, and 
drowned in the brook, and shot in battle, which 
were simply a part of the day’s work. Susan 
was very careless about leaving him lying 
about in the woods, or in the tall weeds about 
the Rebel’s House. Over and over again she 
scurried off when she heard the gong for din- 
ner or tea, leaving him lying just where she 
happened to have had him last. Michael 
always picked him up and ran after her with 
him, but one night, when he saw her starting 
off empty handed, he could not find Mr. 
Musteed. He shouted: — “Susan! Susan!” 
but she ran on, paying no attention. He ran 
after her, and overtook her at last in front of 
the Rebel’s House. 

“Susan, where did you leave Mr. Musteed?” 
he demanded. 

Susan stared blankly. “I don’t know,” she 
said at last. 

“Then he’s lost^ cried Michael. 

“Oh, we’ll find him to-morrow,” said Su- 
san, starting to run off again. 

143 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


^‘But we can’t leave him till to-morrow. 
We have got to find him to-night,” Michael 
insisted. 

“Mother will only give me bread and milk 
for tea and send me to bed half an hour early 
if I’m late,” said Susan, rushing off. 

“Nieder, you stay and help me find him,” 
said Michael. 

“I won’t. We will have morells for tea to- 
night, and they will be cold,” replied Nieder 
indignantly, rushing off after Susan. Mi- 
chael watched them disappear among the 
weeds, the low sun giving occasional shining 
glimpses of Nieder’s bobbing yellow head, and 
something hurt him inside like a sharp stone. 
Mr. Musteed was lost! What was a sup- 
per of bread and milk, or cold morells, or even 
his own father’s grave displeasure, the loss of 
a whole evening’s genial cheer, and a sad going 
to bed, compared to this calamity? He could 
not go home without Mr. Musteed. He didn’t 
see how Susan could, and Nieder was a mean 
little pig to refuse to find him just for the sake 
of hot morells. How could any one eat 
144 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 

morells, or anything else, while Mr. Musteed 
was lost? A great sob escaped Michael be- 
fore he knew it was coming, and more would 
have followed if he had not choked them down. 
He must not cry, for he must have his eyes 
to look for Mr. Musteed. He was not going 
home till he found him, even if it took all 
night. He went back to the woods, and 
hunted in every spot where they had been play- 
ing, along the brook, and in the place that 
was full of the little white flowers that the 
fairies planted, and along the great crumbling 
pine log that smelled so nice. For the first 
time these places were devoid of charm, cold 
and blank, because Mr. Musteed was lost. 
The sun got lower and lower, and made the 
tree trunks look as if they were all made of 
gold, but even this wonderful effect could not 
delight Michael as it would have done at any 
other time. He scarcely noticed when the sun 
disappeared, and the magical gold vanished in 
dusky shadows. All the familiar spots grew 
dimmer and dimmer; he had to peer at first, 
and then to feel, into dark hollows where Mr, 
145 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


Musteed might be. Each desperate leap of 
his heart in hope made the disappointment 
more sickening when a closer look revealed! 
only pine needles or black muck, or his hand 
met only cold moist earth instead of the woolen 
body it ached to feel. Everything about him 
grew cold and damp, his boots were so wet 
that they were tight and uncomfortable. Sud- 
denly something bounded against him, and 
Brian was licking his face. He threw his arms 
around the dog and burst out sobbing. 

“Michael!” his father’s voice exclaimed. 
“Were you lost?” 

“I’m not — lost — it’s Mr. Musteed!” sobbed 
Michael. 

“ What do you mean, alannah? What has 
kept you here all this time? I thought you 
were lost, and I have been hunting everywhere 
for you.” His father had picked him up and 
was carrying him home, big and heavy though 
he was. 

“I couldn’t come home till I found Mr. 
Musteed,^ — and Susan and Nieder wouldn’t 
help me — Susan was afraid of her mother — 
146 


THE DRIVE TO TOWN 


and Nieder wanted his tea^ — and Mr. Musteed’s 

lostr 

Michael did not often cry as he cried on the 
way home that evening. Brian kept jump- 
ing up, trying to reach him to comfort him. 
When they got home, his father made a big 
fire in the fireplace, and set him down before 
it, and told him he was cold and must get 
warmed up ; but Michael himself did not 
realize that he was cold, although he was shiver- 
ing, or realize anything except that Mr. Mus- 
teed was lost. His father bathed his feet in 
hot water, and gave him a drink of hot milk. 
He never could drink hot milk afterwards 
without remembering the night Mr. Musteed 
was lost. Then his father tried to make him 
eat something, but the food seemed to stick in 
the place where the sharp stone had been when 
he saw Susan and Nieder running home 
through the weeds. When he went to bed, 
Brian showed his sympathy and concern by in- 
sisting on curling up on his feet. 

For some days after that he wore out Su- 
san’s and Nieder ’s patience by his persistence 
147 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


in hunting for Mr. Musteed. He refused to 
play at anything, till Mr. Musteed was found. 
At last, one day, he came to a place in the 
brook where a lot of rubbish was stuck, and a 
muddy thing with two legs hanging down was 
caught there. In a moment he had pulled it 
out, and was shaking off the mud. The object 
had two arms, and a head, and when several 
layers of mud were removed, he discovered that 
there were two black beads for eyes. It did 
not matter in the least to Michael that it was all 
wobbly and floppy, and there was not a hint 
left of the red and white stripes that had been 
so gay, and the most thorough washing in the 
brook would still leave it a grimy object; this 
was Mr. Musteed, more dearly beloved than 
ever, and with wild shouts of joy he announced 
the discovery of the lost hero. 


148 


CHAPTER X 


OLD COLQUHOUN 

By this time Michael and old Colquhoun had 
become great friends. Michael often went 
over to see him, always bringing Brian, for 
old Colquhoun liked Brian, and gratified Mi- 
chael’s sensitive pride in him by warm and dis- 
criminating praise. Jessie was always glad 
to see Brian, too; as soon as she saw them com- 
ing she bounded up to him, licking and mouth- 
ing him all over, with eloquent grunts and 
groans of affection, while he lay down and 
luxuriated in this treatment. ‘‘What does she 
do it for?” Michael often asked. 

“Is it no strange?” remarked old Colquhoun, 
in a profoundly speculative tone. One great 
attraction old Colquhoun had was that he 
seldom answered a question directly, and in- 
vested the simplest subject with mystery. 

149 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


This habit was tantalising, exasperating some- 
times, but it was delightful, to any one who 
loved mystery as Michael did. 

Jessie had only one of her puppies left now. 
This was a puppy called Tam o’ Shanter, just 
Brian’s size, and exactly like him in colour and 
markings. Tam’s white streak on the head 
disappeared just when Brian’s did; like Brian, 
he had a white collar and shirt front, white 
paws, one foreleg white up to the knee, and 
a white tip to the tail. But he was not really 
a bit like Brian; he was what Michael called 
“a wiggly waggly dog.” He showed his affec- 
tion by winding himself around your feet and 
grovelling under your boots. Jessie was a 
solemn dog. She followed her master about 
when he was working outside, slowly and 
gravely, watching everything he did ; if he was 
sitting on the steps talking to Michael, Jessie 
sat down beside him with the utmost dignity, 
and scarcely moved while the conversation was 
going on. Brian and Tam played about, and 
Jessie sometimes turned her head to watch 
150 


OLD COLQUHOUN 


their movements, with a regal tolerance for 
such frivolous proceedings. 

“Jessie is a grand dog,” Michael remarked 
once, almost awed by the solemnity of her as- 
pect. 

“She is that, Michael,” rephed old Col- 
quhoun, and Michael knew at once from his 
tone that he had pleased him more than he had 
ever pleased him before. Then he added 
sorrowfully: — “Her son will never be like 
her.” 

“He’s just the same colour,” said Michael. 

“Aw yes,” said old Colquhoun slowly. “If 
it was only colour! Ma Jessie’s getting auld, 
and I was foolish enough to think a puppy o’ 
hers would grow perhaps, no to fill her place 
— ^nae dog can do that, Jessie^ — but to sort o’ 
mak’ a break i’ the blank, when she is deid.” 

At this point Jessie turned round to her 
master, and slowly, gravely put her paw into 
his hand. He took it silently, looking into her 
face for a moment. “It’s fearsome!” he said 
presently, under his breath. “Mon, it’s fear- 
151 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


some ! It’s no safe to speak o’ onything before 
her. Sometimes I think she kens ma verra 
thochts!” 

“Did she understand what you were say- 
ing?” asked Michael, in breathless awe. J essie 
was rapidly becoming invested with the mys- 
tery that surrounded her master. 

“I canna tell. But I’m thinkin’ I dinna ken 
ma auld Jessie sae weel as she kens me.” 

From that day the stately old dog had all 
the fascination of something “no canny,” to 
use Colquhoun’s expression, for Michael. He 
used to watch them sitting together, and de- 
lightful shivers ran down his back. He 
gradually became convinced that old Col- 
quhoun had been at one time, if he was not 
actually at present, intimately associated with 
fairies. Colquhoun did nothing to dispel this 
idea, indeed he seemed to enjoy it. Michael 
could never, by the most persistent question- 
ing, get him to say he had ever had dealings 
with them, but he encouraged the idea that 
they abounded everywhere, and might any 
time be discovered among the underbrush in 
152 


OLD COLQUHOUN 


the woods, or the tall weeds about the Rebel’s 
House, or in the dim and dusty recesses of 
the old barn. He had a way of talking about 
them that made them more and more myste- 
rious and exciting. One day Michael brought 
him one of the “flowers the fairies planted,” 
explaining that it was too white and small and 
beautiful to be a real flower. Old Colquhoun 
looked at it, and said: — “Weel, week” Some- 
how, after that, Michael could almost see where 
the fairies’ hands had touched it. 

Once he brought Susan and Nieder to see 
Colquhoun, but that was not a successful ex- 
periment. They stared and looked blank at 
everything he said. Susan was confirmed in 
her impression that he was queer, and Nieder 
agreed with her. They took their departure 
much sooner than Michael, and as Colquhoun 
watched Nieder ’s retreating back, he remarked 
meditatively to Jessie: — “Yon’s a braw, hale 
beastie. I ken ilka thing he’ll do a’ his life.” 

“What will he do?” inquired Michael curi- 
ously. 

“I canna be fashed tellin’ ye,” replied old 
153 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

Colquhoun carelessly. '‘He’s a guid laddie, 
a verra guid laddie, I ha’e nae doot, and he’ll 
be a guid mon. But he’s unco tame!” 

Michael felt hot at this criticism of Nieder. 
He would not have minded half as much hear- 
ing any other fault attributed to his playmate 
as that of being “unco tame.” He had always 
hated tameness so. “Nieder is a fine fellow,” 
he retorted. “If you played with him — I 
mean, if you were a little boy, and played with 
him, — ^you would know how nice he is.” 

“Nae doot,” said old Colquhoun. “But he’s 
gey easy to ken. I dinna hke to ken onybody 
ower week” 

The summer passed on, and Brian and Tam 
got bigger and bigger. They still kept pace 
exactly. “Isn’t it funny that they look ex- 
actly alike?” Michael said one day. “One isn’t 
even any bigger than the other.” 

“But they’re no alike. Your Brian is going 
to be like Jessie when he is grown. Even noo, 
I sometimes catch the grave look in his e’en. 
Ma Tam is nae mair like Jessie than if he hadna 
a drap o’ her bluid in his veins. I canna like 
154 


OLD COLQUHOUN 


Tam; I hinna patience wi’ his ways. He kens 
ower weel to use his e’en at ye, and kiss and 
wheedle. There’s nae dignity in him. I’m 
thinkin’ he’ll no end weel.” 

Michael sometimes felt sorry for Tam, when 
he saw how coldly and sharply the dog was 
treated by his master, but he could not hke him 
either. His blandishments were a httle too 
effusive even for a small boy who was by no 
means inclined to be fastidious. It soon be- 
came evident that Brian disliked him also. 
They became peevish and irritable at their 
play, and began snarling and showing their 
teeth at each other; at last, one hot afternoon, 
they flew at each other’s throats. Before 
either of their excited masters could intervene, 
Jessie had stopped the fight by one calm bound 
between them. After that, Michael never 
brought Brian over to old Colquhoun’s. 

His father became interested in old Colqu- 
houn, as he heard a great deal about him, and 
remarked one day: — ‘T think he might come 
over to see me sometimes.” Accordingly, Mi- 
chael inquired when he was sitting on old Col- 
155 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


quhoun’s doorstep that afternoon: — ‘‘Why 
don’t you come over to see my father?” 

“I’ve been thinkin’ I’d like to ken your 
feyther,” said old Colquhoun; but just as Mi- 
chael was opening his bps to urge him he ab- 
ruptly changed the subject. Every time Mi- 
chael broached it he behaved in the same man- 
ner, till at last Michael succeeded in pinning 
him down to a reason. He blurted it out in 
such a funny way that Michael thought he must 
be shy — but surely old men were never shy. 
“I’m no used to gaeing into ither people’s 
hooses,” he said. “Ma claes are no fit.” 

“They’re not much worse than Susan’s 
father’s,” said Michael, surveying him criti- 
cally. (Susan’s father would not have been 
flattered. Old Colquhoun was at present ar- 
rayed in an undershirt and a pair of trousers. ) 
“He came over yesterday in a vest pinned with 
a safety pin.” 

“Ye ken ma coat — it’s ripped doon the back. 
Na, na, I couldna gae into onybody’s hoose in 
that!” 

“Father would show you how to mend it. 

156 


OLD COLQUHOUN 

He’s learned to sew up rips and put in 
patches.” 

Old Colquhoun’s face suddenly cleared. 
He looked at Michael for a moment. ‘‘Oh!” 
he exclaimed in a tone of joyful relief. “It’s 
juist your feyther and yourself?” 

“Yes,” said Michael. He thought the sud- 
den alacrity with which old Colquhoun yielded 
was due to the prospect of being taught how to 
mend, and he joyfully escorted him over. 
After that he was a frequent visitor, and he 
and Michael’s father became great friends. 


157 


CHAPTER XI 


THE TOUCAN 

Michael never quite forgot his desire for a 
toucan, although it was very much in the back- 
ground this summer, the games in the woods, 
and old Colquhoun, and Brian, were all so ab- 
sorbing. But one day, when he was having 
one of his “happy by myself times,” he wan- 
dered out into the field where the squash and 
melon hills were. It was almost dinner time, 
and there was a deep hush over everything. 
It was a hazy day, and there was something in 
the air that made Michael feel good. It was 
the first hint of fall, with the attendant cosiness 
and cheer, but Michael did not know that. He 
only knew he felt nice all through, and he 
wanted to go off by himself to think. As he 
was wandering about among the squash hills, 
he suddenly saw something golden, with a long 
curved neck, among the leaves. Here was a 
158 


THE TOUCAN 


toucan — at last! He pounced on it at once, 
tore it away from among the leaves, and rushed 
into the house, shouting to his father: — “I’ve 
found my toucan! I’ve found my toucan!” 

His father did not say that it looked to 
him remarkably like a crookneck squash. He 
smiled, and said it was a fine toucan, and let Mi- 
chael deposit it on the end of the bench where 
the water pails stood. Why he should choose 
that particular spot for the magic bird, and why 
it was never moved from there, Michael himself 
did not know, and certainly nobody else did. 
But every morning, as soon as he got up, and 
every night before he went to bed, he ran to the 
bench to stroke his “golden beautiful toucan,” 
and he did the same whenever he came home 
from a drive to town. He saved choice morsels 
from every meal, and set them before it. 
Brian became very fond of that end of the 
bench. 

It was so golden! Such a rich, satisfying 
golden. Michael loved all golden and yellow 
things. Perhaps, if Brian had been black or 
brown or white instead of yellow, he would 
159 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

have loved him as well, but his love would not 
have been of just the same poignant nature. 
Certainly he could have glorified nothing of 
a tamer hue, as he did that golden toucan. 
One chilly September evening they were driv- 
ing home from town after dark; the waggon 
had to be repaired, and Fionn had to be shod, 
besides all the usual shopping, and this had 
kept them late. Michael’s father was tired 
and sad; it was not unusual for him to be sad, 
but he generally concealed the fact from Mi- 
chael. To-day, however, many little things 
had been occurring to induce a fit of dis- 
couragement, and to aggravate the lonely 
heartache of which Michael had only once had 
a faint, dimly understood glimpse — the time 
he had cried after seeing Nieder’s mother, and 
his father had shown such tender comprehen- 
sion of his tears. It did not alleviate this lone- 
liness to know he was coming home to a dark, 
cold, empty house, and would have to fight 
the fire, cook the tea, attend to the horses and 
cow, and put Michael to bed, before he could 
retire to his own well-earned rest. He had 
160 


THE TOUCAN 


been saddened, too, by the sight of a forlorn 
little family group that got off the train while 
he was at the station; a woman with a pale, 
frightened face (plainly the face of a stranger 
in a strange land), a baby in her arms, and 
another child beside her, and a frail looking 
man, aged by illness, who carried a bundle in 
one hand and leaned heavily on a cane with 
the other. Michael’s father could not get 
them out of his head. “Those poor people!” 
he broke out to Michael when they were nearly 
home. 

“What people?” asked Michael. 

“Those people we saw at the station — 
lonely strangers, like ourselves, trying to 
scratch a home together in the new land.” 

“But why are they poor people? It’s the 
greatest fun! Do you think they’re going to 
build a house for themselves, like us? Do you 
remember what good times we had building 
our house?” 

“Yes,” replied his father listlessly. Mi- 
chael was quick to feel the lack of sympathy 
in his tone. 


161 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


“Wasn’t it fun?” he insisted. 

“Great fun for you,” his father replied 
heavily. Then he suddenly felt a stab of self- 
reproach. Had he not always gloried in his 
son’s high spirit and courage? Had he any 
right to cast a damper on the boy because he 
happened to be cold and tired himself, discour- 
aged and hungry? “Yes, it was fun for both 
of us,” he added. “And no doubt those people 
will get fun out of it too, if they go about it 
the right way. I was only sorry for them be- 
cause they looked tired and strange.” 

As they turned up the hill their house was 
only visible as a dark blot in the starlight, but 
Michael exclaimed: — “Look! There’s a beau- 
tiful golden light in the window! It’s the 
toucan!” As they turned in the gate, he 
cried: — “It’s singing a loud sweet song be- 
cause it’s glad we are coming back!” 

The house that was so dark and dreary to 
his father as they entered, was full of a golden 
glow, of song and cheer, for him. His father 
often thought that he was unconsciously try- 
162 


THE TOUCAN 


ing to make the toucan supply the warmth and 
brightness a mother’s presence would have 
given. 

The toucan’s loud sweet song had magical 
powers. About this time Michael’s father read 
Kipling’s ‘‘Jungle Book” to him, and the book 
took so strong a hold of Michael’s imagination 
that he fairly lived in it for months afterwards. 
The black cat became Bahgeera the panther, 
and never again subsided into a mere black 
cat. The commonplace Plymouth Rock hens 
were transformed into wolves (surely a tri- 
umph of imagination!), while one with a rose 
comb was Mother Wolf. Every night she 
came to the house and made a disturbance, and 
Brian and Bahgeera fought her in vain^ — she 
was bent on mischief, and got in by all sorts 
of fantastic means, such as stealing into the 
cellar and gnawing a hole through the floor. 
But as soon as she heard the toucan’s loud 
sweet song she slunk away, conquered and sub- 
dued. When Brian was naughty the toucan’s 
loud sweet song made him good, and it had 
163 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


the same effect on Michael. One night, as he 
was going to bed, his father praised him for 
having been a particularly good boy. 

“Oh, that was because the toucan was sing- 
ing all day,” he rephed. 

But unfortunately the toucan, if it had a 
mighty soul, had a sadly perishable body. It 
began to get black specks all over its back. 
This did not distress Michael. He knew 
toucans had black backs, and this one was prob- 
ably only golden all over at first because it was 
young. Of course as it grew older it would 
get like other full-grown toucans. A twist 
came in its neck, too, but Michael loved it just 
as well. He was not one to turn the cold 
shoulder on his friends for any such trifles. 
His father understood and respected this feel- 
ing, and so he endured the toucan for a long 
time, but at last he felt that it really was his 
duty to decree its removal. Susan’s father 
and Nieder’s father looked at it with extra- 
ordinary expressions every time they came, 
and to attempt to explain its presence would 
have been worse than useless. Not that this 
164 


THE TOUCAN 


had any influence in deciding Michael’s father 
to dispose of the toucan. Neighbourly criti- 
cism was a mere trifle, compared to the pain 
of broaching the subject to Michael. His 
courage failed him again and again, but at 
last, one evening, he remarked: — “Michael, I 
am afraid that poor old toucan won’t last much 
longer.” 

“It isn’t old — it is only growing up. It 
sang its loud sweet song all day to-day,” Mi- 
chael protested. 

“It is old,” his father insisted. “You have 
kept it a very long time, Michael, and I’m 
really afraid it will have to be — ” Michael’s 
father paused as if something had stuck in his 
throat. Any of the commonplace expressions 
one might apply to a crookneck squash — 
“thrown out,” or “destroyed,” or “burned”^ — 
sounded so outrageously brutal when applied 
to a “golden beautiful toucan.” 

“Oh, Father, you’re not going to make me 
give up the toucan?” exclaimed Michael pite- 
ously. 

“Yes, Michael, I must. It really can’t be 

165 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


kept in the house any longer. I know you 
will be a good, brave boy, and not make a fuss, 
when I say it will have to be done. It will 
have to be done to-morrow.” 

So Michael went quietly, if sadly to bed, 
determined to be brave and not make a 
fuss, although the amputation of a limb could 
hardly have tried his courage more severely. 
Of course, very unpleasant tilings had to be 
faced,^ — he knew that, although he had never 
had to face any, except the removal of a few 
loose teeth. The first time one of his teeth 
had begun to waggle he had been much dis- 
tressed, and had gone to the cupboard to look 
for something to stick it in with, but there was 
nothing on the shelves that looked promising, 
so he had been obliged to tell his father about 
it, although he knew by instinct that the con- 
sequences would not he agreeable. But he 
had borne them bravely, and when the ordeal 
was over had smiled and said: — ‘T’m glad 
now!” This was his first acquaintance with 
pain, and although it was a brief one, it gave 
him some idea of how brave soldiers had to be. 

166 


THE TOUCAN 


It was after this that he somehow got the idea 
that a great many unpleasant things had to 
be endured in the world — that was the differ- 
ence between the world and Heaven. His last 
thought as he fell asleep, on the night of the 
conversation recorded above, was that there 
was dreadful unpleasantness in store for him 
to-morrow, but he must be brave about it. 
First thing when he awoke, and saw his 
father lighting the fire, he remembered this 
unpleasantness. When he tried to eat his 
breakfast every bite stuck halfway down, 
like the night Mr. Musteed was lost. He 
was determined that he would eat his break- 
fast^ — every bite — and show his father that he 
meant to be good; but he could not eat the 
last two bites of toast. He fixed his eyes on 
the crumbs on the table, and tried to divert 
his thoughts by playing that one big crumb 
was the town, and a little crumb some distance 
away was their waggon on the way to town. 
But in spite of his determined absorption in 
this idea, he felt the tears coming, and knew 
they would burst from him in another instant 
167 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


if he continued to sit there, so he jumped up, 
and announced that he was going to the 
Rebel’s House. He skipped out of the door, 
kicking up his heels, as if he were in the high- 
est spirits, but once out of sight he indulged in 
a passionate outburst of tears. Then he went 
on to the Rebel’s House, and was very wild 
and gay and noisy all morning; but he never 
once forgot that when he came home to dinner 
he would find the end of the bench empty, and 
no “golden beautiful toucan” would light up 
the house on dark nights any more. He came 
home slowly and sorrowfully, and tried not 
to look at the end of the bench as he went in, 
but something speckled, with a twisted neck, 
caught his eye, and he looked again. His 
toucan was still there! 

He thought his father had forgotten to “do 
it” (he shrank from specifying, even in his 
own mind, what his father would do) , and that 
the end of the bench would certainly be vacant 
at tea-time. But it was not. Neither was it 
vacant at bedtime. The next day, and the 
next, the toucan still remained, and nothing 
168 


THE TOUCAN 


more was said about its execution. Michael 
wondered why his father had changed his 
mind. He wondered, a little anxiously, if he 
really had been good about it. Yes, he had. 
He hadn’t made a bit of a fuss. Having sat- 
isfied himself that this was not the cause of 
his father’s change of mind, he ceased to specu- 
late on the subject, and only felt glad. He 
never dreamed that his endeavour to eat his 
breakfast as if nothing was the matter had done 
more to unman his father than any fuss would 
have done. The toucan remained on the end 
of the bench, and dried and shrank and 
shrivelled, till it was mostly twisted neck; but 
its golden light, still undimmed, and its loud 
sweet song, filled the house with glory and joy 
for Michael. 


169 


CHAPTER XII 

THE MURDER OF MR. MUSTEED 

Michael was soon to find that all fathers 
were not built on the same lines as his own. 
One morning Susan appeared without Mr. 
Musteed. When Michael asked her where he 
was, she replied: — ‘'Oh, Michael, father put 
him in the stove this morning. He — ’’ 

^'What?’^ cried Michael. “Mr. Musteed 
isn’t burned up?” 

“Yes, father took him out of my hand and 
said he was too filthy for me to carry around 
any more.” 

Michael felt as if some great, heavy thing 
had shut down with a bang on the joyful world 
in which he moved, blotting out light and 
happiness by one awful stroke. He couldn't 
believe that Mr. Musteed was burned up — 
could never be rescued, never be found again 
— that he would never again see or touch 
170 


THE MURDER OF MR. MUSTEED 


that dear wobbly body. He was furious with 
rage at Susan’s father, and hurt at Susan for 
the matter-of-fact tone in which she related the 
tragedy. 

‘Tt was murderr he roared. “That’s what 
it is when one man puts another man in the 
stove I” 

“But he wasn’t a man — ^he was only a doll.” 

“I don’t believe you care an old ricketty 
broken hook!” 

“Of course I was sorry, but mother gave 
me such a beautiful piece of green silk for a 
dress for Jane Dove. It was out of an old 
dress of hers that was worn out. Just wait 
till you see Jane Dove dressed up in it!” 

“I don’t want to see her.” 

“Don’t be cross, Michael. It was because 
he was so dirty that father — ” 

“Your father is as cruel as an old wolf!” 
Michael burst out. 

Susan stared at him for a moment. “You 
scalawag!” she ejaculated, quite forgetting in 
her indignation that this expression, although 
her father occasionally used it, did not fall in 
171 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

with her mother’s ideas of elegant diction. 
“How dare you? Such a lie! I’ll never speak 
to you again,” and Susan turned and dashed 
back towards the house. Michael was some- 
what surprised. Generally it was himself or 
Nieder who were the aggressors in a quarrel, 
and Susan who meekly and tearfully mourned 
their displeasure, and made the first overtures 
of peace. He and Nieder were graciously 
pleased to regard her as “a good tempered 
little thing.” Therefore Michael was sur- 
prised at this outburst, but he did not care. 
He did not want to speak any more to a girl 
who could be consoled for the murder of Mr. 
Musteed by a piece of green silk for a doll’s 
dress. 

He and Nieder played alone in the Rebel’s 
House for the next three days. All its charm 
was temporarily gone for Michael. The 
emptiness that had been so delightfully sug- 
gestive, so productive of imaginary forms, was 
cold and dreary and lifeless; from the old 
sofa, from the soap-box, from the stairs, from 
172 


THE MURDER OF MR. MUSTEED 

every window and every empty corner, from 
the grey dead weeds outside, Mr. Musteed’s 
absence stared him in the face and sent a chill 
through him. The echo of their voices through 
the empty rooms, that used to delight him, was 
ghastly now. Besides, although he would not 
acknowledge it, he felt the need of Susan. 
Without her, Nieder could not be engineered 
smoothly through any more imaginative play 
than running races, and scuffling and wresthng 
and having jumping matches off the stairs. 
All these amusements were fascinating, of 
course; there was great exhilaration in beat- 
ing Nieder in a race all round the house and 
barn together, and in jumping from the 
fourth step of the stairs halfway across the 
hall, while Nieder could only jump from the 
third, and sometimes tumbled. But three days 
of the same sports became rather monotonous, 
and whenever Michael tried any play with im- 
aginary people in it, Nieder was intolerably 
stupid, and generally ended by getting cross. 
Susan was really no more imaginative than Nie- 
173 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


der, but she was quicker to take up Michael’s 
ideas, and entered enthusiastically into any 
play that promised dramatic situations, espe- 
cially if she could figure picturesquely in it. 
Nieder followed where two led, but was more 
inclined to assert himself when he had only one 
playmate; so Michael, although he felt he could 
never like Susan again whenever he thought of 
the green silk dress, found himself missing her 
against his will. Every day he expected to 
see her coming to make up friends, and every 
day he was — glad, of course, when she didn’t, 
for he was not at all sure that he would make 
up friends. And yet^ — 

The third evening, at tea, his father began 
to inquire into the matter. ‘Ts Susan sick?” 
he asked. 

‘T don’t know,” said Michael. 

‘T haven’t seen her with you lately.” 

Michael was silent for a few minutes. Then 
he said briefiy: — “We quarrelled.” 

“Quarrelled? What about?” 

“Mr. Musteed.” 

There was another silence. Then Michael 
174 


THE MURDER OF MR. MUSTEED 


said, in a choked voice — “Her father mur- 
dered him.” 

“What do you mean, Michael?” 

Michael set down his cup of chocolate, and 
burst into sobs. 

“He burned him! He took him out of her 
hand — and burned him up^ — and her mother 
gave her green silk for a doll’s dress, and that 
made up — she doesn’t care about Mr. Mus- 
teed!” 

“It’s too bad, a stor! Was that why you 
quarrelled with her?” 

“Yes. At least, she quarrelled with me 
first, but I haven’t tried to make up friends. 
She doesn’t usually get angry, but I said her 
father was a cruel old wolf, and she called me 
a scalawag, and said it was a lie, and she ran 
away and has never made up friends, and I 
don’t want to. At least — I don’t think — ” 

“Well, Michael, I’m very sorry about Mr. 
Musteed, and I don’t think much of her for 
being consoled by a piece of green silk, but if 
you called her father a cruel old wolf, there’s 
something to he said on her side.” 

175 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


“But he is a cruel old wolf!” 

“Would you like any one to call your father 
a name like that?” 

“I’d knock any one down if he did!” 

“Then you shouldn’t say it about anybody 
else’s father.” 

“But you’re different from anybody else’s 
father!” 

“Susan thinks her father is different, too. 
It isn’t gentlemanly to say unpleasant things 
to people about their fathers. It isn’t what a 
little Irishman, with the blood of kings in his 
veins, ought to do, no matter how angry he 
gets.” 

“What does having the blood of kings in 
your veins mean?” demanded Michael excit- 
edly. 

“It means that the great-great-great-grand- 
fathers of the great-great-grandfathers of all 
Irishmen were kings, because long ago, before 
the Sacsanaigh came, Ireland was full of 
kings. Some of them were brave men, that we 
ought to be proud to have come from.” 

“Do you mean that I’m the great-great- 

176 


THE MURDER OF MR. MUSTEED 


great-grandson of a king?” inquired Michael, 
with shining eyes. This was wonderful! He 
had never dreamed he had anything to do with 
a king. 

“Not quite so close a relative as that,” his 
father replied, smiling. “Some king was prob- 
ably your grandfather, so far back that you 
couldn’t count. When we get so far back as 
that we don’t call them grandfathers — ^we call 
them ancestors.” 

“Was he a brave king?” inquired Michael. 

“Very likely. And a little boy with a brave 
king for an ancestor has no business to be in- 
sulting people about their fathers.” 

“I won’t do it again, if the king wouldn’t 
have done it,” replied Michael. 

“Do you know what I would do to-morrow 
morning, if I were in your place?” his father 
inquired. 

“What?” 

“I would go over to Susan’s, and tell her I 
was sorry for what I said about her father, and 
make it up.” 

“Have I got to go?” 

177 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

‘‘I was only telling you what I would do in 
your place.” 

Somehow, no matter how Michael disliked 
the thought of doing a thing, he always came 
round to it after he heard that his father would 
do it in his place. Many a time this had urged 
him to the peaceable performance of a distaste- 
ful duty, when a command would have meant 
passionate rebelhon. And he was not at all 
sure that he did altogether dislike the idea of 
making up friends. Indeed, before he went 
to sleep, he found, to his great surprise, that 
he wanted quite badly to see Susan again, al- 
though of course he could never like her, after 
the green silk business. Next morning, when 
he woke up, he decided to go over; and when 
he sat down to breakfast he was so anxious to 
go that he could hardly wait to eat. When he 
was through he ran over to Susan’s as hard as 
he could pelt, and came panting into the barn- 
yard as Susan was holding a squalling hen for 
her father to cut its wing. He was surprised 
that Susan was still the same little red-coated 
17 § 


THE MURDER OF MR. MUSTEED 


figure she had been long ago, before the quar- 
rel. 

“Susan, I’ve come to say I’m sorry I called 
your father a cruel old wolf, and won’t you 
make up friends?” he asked. He had meant 
to say, with indifferent dignity: — “Will you 
make up friends?” But the more coaxing 
formula and tone had escaped him unawares. 

Susan’s father looked up quickly, stared, 
then burst into his boisterous laugh. “Well, 
you do beat the Dutch !” he exclaimed. 

Perhaps that laugh had something to do to- 
wards making Susan amenable. “Will you 
never say it again?” she inquired, with twice 
the dignity Michael had meant to assume. 

“No. He can never murder Mr. Musteed 
again,” replied Michael. 

“All right. We’ll make up friends,” said 
Susan. 

Her father stared and laughed again. It 
seemed as if he laughed at everything. Mi- 
chael planted himself before him, with legs 
well apart and fists involuntarily clenched, 
179 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


and a fire in his eyes that sobered and aston- 
ished Susan’s father. “Did you think it was 
funny to murder Mr. Musteed?” he demanded. 

“No, I was quite sorry to have to burn the 
httle beggar.” 

“He wasn’t a beggar!” 

“Good gracious !” exclaimed Susan’s father. 
Being a pious church-goer, he never used any 
stronger expression than this, but he used it 
often enough, and vehemently enough, to make 
up for the ones he didn’t use. “You’re a regu- 
lar little spitfire! I’m thankful you’re not my 
kid, you would be a handful to manage.” Su- 
san’s father thus unconsciously reciprocated 
the sentiments Michael had expressed the 
Christmas before. 


180 


CHAPTER XIII 


MR. JANE DOVE 

The construction of Jane Dove’s new dress 
took a couple of weeks, and Susan herself had 
a hand in it. Her mother thought it an ex- 
cellent way to teach her to sew. Every after- 
noon she went home early from the Rebel’s 
House, saying with her most important air : — 
‘T must do something at Jane Dove’s dress 
now.” At last, one afternoon, she appeared 
dancing and smihng. “Jane Dove’s dress is 
finished!” she cried. 

Michael said nothing. He still could not 
forgive Susan for her joy over that dress. 
Nieder remarked indifferently:^ — “That so?” 

“Boys, you miist come right over and see 
her in it!” said Susan. 

“I’m not going,” said Michael. 

“Oh, Michael!” said Susan, in a tone of 
great disappointment. 

181 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


Michael started up to the Rebers House, 
his head thrown back in a way which Susan 
knew indicated his least amenable mood. 

“You’re mean !” she called after him. “Nie- 
der, you’ll come, won’t you?” 

Nieder acquiesced goodnaturedly, but with- 
out any special enthusiasm. When they 
joined Michael at the Rebel’s House Susan 
exclaimed: — “Jane Dove looks so fine in her 
new dress that I said to Nieder she ought to 
get married now, and he said she might as 
well!” 

Still stem silence on Michael’s part. Nie- 
der inquired indifferently: — “Have you a he 
for her to get married to?” 

“Perhaps Santa Claus will bring me another 
knittity for Christmas, and then we can have 
one to play with up here again.” 

“What’s the use of getting another one? 
Your father would just burn him again,” said 
Michael. 

“Oh, I’d try to keep him cleaner.” 

“No, you wouldn’t. You would leave him 
182 


MR. JANE DOVE 


lying round in the dirt just the same way you 
left Mr. Musteed,” replied Michael. 

“You boys did a lot more to dirty Mr. 
Musteed than I did. Oh, I want so much to 
have Jane Dove get married!” said Susan. 

“Can’t you talk about anything but Jane 
Dove?” demanded Michael. 

“No, I can’t — she is so beautiful! I’m so 
anxious to have her get married while her dress 
is nice and new!” 

“Well, she had better marry an invisible 
man that your father can’t burn,” said Mi- 
chael. 

“Mr. Musteed was so much nicer than an in- 
visible person. I would hke another knittity 
just like him, but it’s a long time till Christmas 
yet, and I’m in such a hurry for her to get 
married! Michael, do you think you could 
find a very nice man for her in the woods?” 

The task of finding a very nice man for Jane 
Dove, whose name he loathed, did not appeal 
to Michael; but the Rebel’s House was sadly 
in need of a hero, and the thought of an in- 
183 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


visible hero was irresistibly fascinating. After 
all, there was no reason why Mr. Jane Dove 
should not be an infinitely more admirable 
person than his bride, so after some hesitation 
Michael promised to find him in the woods next 
morning, and the wedding would, of course, 
take place as soon as he was found. 

“We’ll have it up here,” Susan said. “I’ll 
bring Jane Dove up in her carriage, and be 
very careful of her.” 

Next morning Michael and Nieder were 
much surprised to encounter Susan all in her 
Sunday best. “What are you dressed up as 
if you were going to church for?” inquired Mi- 
chael. 

“People always put on their very nicest 
clothes when they go to weddings,” rephed Su- 
san. “You boys haven’t dressed up at all! 
You look like a pair of tramps.” 

“I’ll find a coat made of gold for each of 
us when I go to the woods, and a golden sword 
to hang round our middles,” said Michael. 

Jane Dove was reposing in her carriage, 
with her golden curls spread out against a 
184 


MR. JANE DOVE 


background of white veil, and a wreath of ever- 
lastings on her head. Her solemn, vacant wax 
face was staring up at the sky. Michael 
looked at her scornfully. So that was the 
thing whose new dress could console Susan for 
the murder of Mr. Musteed! She didn’t de- 
serve a nice man, she deserved a bad one, but 
as her husband was to help them in all sorts 
of wonderful deeds, he must be good and 
brave. 

Michael picked up one gold coat under the 
stump fence, and another a little farther on in 
the woods, and the swords were lying under 
a pine log. He had to go a good deal farther 
along before he saw a pair of legs swinging 
from a branch. “Hello!” he called. 

“Hello!” replied a voice. 

“I’m looking for a man to marry Jane 
Dove,” said Michael. 

“All right. I’ll come,” said the invisible man, 
and jumped down beside Michael. 

As they walked back together Michael 
found the future Mr. Jane Dove to be just the 
kind of hero he had wanted very badly to know. 

185 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


He had once lived in Ireland and been a 
patriot, and had run his sword through ten 
Sacsanaigh policemen (he was wearing the 
sword at present). Then he had gone to sea 
in a ship called the Bright Starting Out, and 
had rescued a great many people he found 
drowning, and had tried very hard to get to 
the North Pole, and had got near enough to 
see it once. Then he had sailed up the river 
in the Bright Starting Out, and had sailed 
away off into the wonderful region where the 
lumbermen lived, and he had seen lions, and 
shared Michael’s ambition to kill one. And — 
he had seen fairies! He had seen them flying 
backwards and forwards across the river, and 
once he had seen one in the woods, in the very 
spot where they were walking now. 

‘T knew they lived here!” cried Michael. 
“Oh, I want to hear all about them, but we 
can’t wait to talk about them now, because Su- 
san is in such a hurry to get Jane Dove mar- 
ried. You will just have to have patience with 
Jane Dove. I’m afraid she’s an awful stu- 
pid.” 


186 


MR. JANE DOVE 


‘‘That doesn’t matter,” replied the hero, 
politely. 

Susan met them at the door. “Have you 
got the man?” she inquired. 

“Yes, I have, and he is a fine fellow. Nie- 
der, here are your coat and sword.” 

Susan set Jane Dove up in the carriage, and 
carefully arranged her veil. “Doesn’t she 
look sweet?” she inquired, kissing her warmly. 
“My beautiful darling Jane Dove!” Then, 
turning to Michael, she demanded; — “Where’s 
the man?” 

“He’s here,” said Michael. 

“What does he look like?” 

“He’s tall, and he has curly hair, and he 
has a sword hanging from his middle that has 
been through ten Sacsanaigh policemen. It 
is all red yet, though he has washed it several 
times.” 

The soap box was standing in the middle of' 
the hall, with Susan’s toy tea-set on it, and a 
bunch of heart’s-ease in the centre. This was 
the festal board, and they all gathered around, 
sitting on the floor with their knees up to 
187 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

their chins, Jane Dove in her carriage occupy- 
ing one end. At each place there was a tiny 
parcel tied with white ribbon, which proved to 
be a box containing a piece of cake. This was 
the only tangible viand. 

“We’re eating tapioca,” said Michael, “and 
we’re driilking chocolate.” These were his 
favourite delicacies. 

“We’re having cauliflower with sauce too,” 
said Susan. 

“And we’re having a great big pudding,” 
said Nieder, who was capable of a flight of im- 
agination where food was concerned. 

After the feast they had a dance, which con- 
sisted in jumping about the room till they were 
tired. Michael delighted in the clanking of 
the swords, especially Mr. Jane Dove’s. 

“I guess they’re married now,” Susan said 
at last. “I’ll take her home. I’m afraid of 
something happening to her, and mother said 
not to stay up here in my good clothes.” 

Mr. Jane Dove proved a very serviceable 
hero in the months that followed. He had a 
horse called Black Auster (Michael’s father 
188 


MR. JANE DOVE 


had finished reading the “Jungle Book” to Mi- 
chael now, and “Black Beauty” was its success- 
or) . Black Auster began by being a replica of 
Black Beauty, but he grew into a very differ- 
ent sort of creature. Black Beauty’s docility 
and sweetness of temper became glorified, in 
Black Auster, into an angelic and incredible 
lovebness of disposition. So marvellously did 
he radiate goodness, that he had only to look 
at any wrongdoer “with such a beautiful ex- 
pression that they stopped at once.” He per- 
formed the same useful function as the toucan, 
with its “loud sweet song.” Michael had thus 
early grasped the truth that the most potent 
reformers in the world are the unconscious 
ones. In the same way Black Beauty’s saga- 
city was magnified till it reached truly marvel- 
lous proportions in Black Auster, and so were 
his physical beauty and strength. His hair 
was like silk, his mane flowed almost to the 
ground; he shone gloriously in the sun, and 
he had great, soft, shining golden eyes, which 
exercised the beneficent influence mentioned 
above. He was so swift that he could carry 
189 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


you away off into the lumbermen’s region — 
right to the very edge of the world, so you 
could sit on his back and look into the sky — 
and home again in a single afternoon. At 
first he galloped over the ground Kke an or- 
dinary horse, but as his perfections increased 
he became so light on his feet that he flew 
through the air, although he was not a winged 
Pegasus. 


190 


CHAPTER XIV 
“monarch of all I survey” 

Michael did not find out just how useful Mr. 
Jane Dove and Black Auster could be, till 
after Christmas. There was such a bad out- 
break of scarlet fever in town that Michael’s 
father made up his mind he would not go there 
again, even if he ran out of such apparent 
necessaries as flour and sugar. Even Susan’s 
father and mother began to consider the de- 
sirability of missing a few Sundays at church, 
but they considered it a little too late. They 
went for the last time the Sunday before 
Christmas. On New Year’s day Susan came 
out as usual to slide downhill, but she got tired, 
and Anally said she had a headache and went 
home. That afternoon, as Michael was run- 
ning out of the gate, Susan’s father came dash- 
ing out of the opposite gate in his sleigh, at 
191 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


such a speed that he and Michael had almost 
collided before he could turn aside. “Good 
gracious!” he ejaculated, expressing in this 
brief and innocuous phrase his consternation 
at having nearly let his horses’ hoofs strike 
Michael’s head. Then he drew up with a jerk. 

“Look here, young man, you’re not to set 
foot inside my gate. Susan’s sick, and her 
mother is in a stew for fear it may be the 
fever.” Having flung this out with savage 
brevity, he lashed up his horses and dashed 
downhill, very much as if he were in a stew 
himself. 

Michael did not see how he could disturb 
Susan by going inside the gate, but he obeyed 
orders, and told Nieder they must keep outside 
Susan’s gate, because she was sick. Nieder 
himself was very dull this afternoon, and did 
not shde downhill with anything like Michael’s 
zest. At last he said he was cold, and went 
home, although Michael begged him to stay. 
Brian was still left to play with, and Michael 
made the most of him, but Brian was most un- 
fortunately beginning to make other friends. 

192 


‘‘MONARCH OF ALL I SURVEY’ 


Strange dogs would insist on hanging about 
the place, and he sniffed around them, played 
with them, sometimes seemed half inchned to 
fight, but always showed a lively enough in- 
terest to encourage them to come again. Old 
Colquhoun shook his head over this. “Ilka 
dog should be like ma Jessie, and ha’e nae 
friend but his master,” he often said. 

On this particular afternoon several of 
Brian’s friends appeared while Michael was 
racing him downhill, and he ran off at once 
with them. Michael followed, whistling, call- 
ing, begging him to come back and play with 
him when he had neither Susan nor Nieder, but 
Brian trotted steadily on along the river road, 
his plump tail at half-mast, his ears pricked 
up alertly, absorption in some urgent business 
expressed in every hne of his body. Michael 
finally went home feeling hurt and sore and 
cross, utterly forsaken and deserted. The sun 
was going down, and it seemed a big, cold, 
lonely world. 

Next morning Brian had not come hack, and 
Michael’s father came in with the news that 
193 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


Susan was very sick with scarlet fever, and 
he must not go over there. He went down to 
see Nieder after breakfast, but just as he got 
in the gate Nieder ’s mother appeared at the 
door, and shouted: — “Go back! Go back! 
Do not come in here!” 

“Why?” asked Michael. 

“Nieder has the fever, and you must not 
come here.” 

For a few days Michael was a lonely crea- 
ture, and did not know what to do with him- 
self. He followed his father about the house 
and stable, and went over every day to see old 
Colquhoun. Day after day passed, and Brian 
did not come back. The lonely feeling was 
dreadful, was worse than being hungry, and 
there was the same sort of emptiness with it. 
The only way he could get any relief was by 
sticking close to his father, or talking with 
old Colquhoun. Every morning he and his 
father went down to the gate, and shouted out 
to Susan’s father to know how Susan was, and 
for a great many mornings Susan’s father re- 
plied savagely that she was no better. 

194 


‘‘MONARCH OF ALL I SURVEY” 


But after several days of loneliness Miehael 
remembered Mr. Jane Dove and Black Auster. 
One morning his father put him on Fionn’s 
back, and led him from the stable to the house^ 
then down to the gate, down the hill, and back 
again. That was rapture for Michael. He 
loved horses. The very smell of the harness 
thrilled him with delight. To be up on the 
back of one, to feel the great body moving 
under him, to press the warm sides with his 
legs, was a taste of bliss, but it was all too brief 
a taste. “Oh, I’d like to really ride, and do 
it all day!” he cried as his father lifted him 
down. 

Just then Mr. Jane Dove appeared on Black 
Auster. “I’m going on a hunting trip to the 
lumberman country,” he said. “Would you 
like to come? Black Auster’s so strong, he 
can carry both of us.” 

Michael jumped up at once on Black Auster, 
in front of Mr. Jane Dove, and took the reins 
in his hands. In an instant Black Auster had 
leaped from the ground and was bounding 
through the air, his great mane flowing splen- 
195 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

didly in the wind, his warm body throbbing 
with life between Michael’s legs — and all this 
wonderful power was completely in his con- 
trol. It was the perfection of the brief, im- 
perfect taste of bliss he had just had. Mi- 
chael’s father wondered why he was galloping 
off across the field without any apparent pur- 
pose, not knowing that he was rapidly leav- 
ing the whole familiar scene behind, and 
entering the unknown land the river came 
from. Presently, in the distance, they saw a 
lion. It looked very big and grand, and its 
tawny hide was distinct on the white snow: 
Michael felt a wild thrill of excitement shoot 
through him from his chest to his feet, and Mr. 
Jane Dove clanked his sword. “We’ll get 
that fellow,” he said. “Have you got your 
gun?” 

“Yes,” said Michael. “And I’ve got my 
sword too.” 

The lion roared just then. It was an awful 
noise, bigger than the noise of a train. Mi- 
chael patted Black Auster’s neck to encourage 
him to be still swifter and braver than he al- 
196 


“MONARCH OF ALL I SURVEY” 

ready was, and whispered: — ‘‘Do your best, old 
Auster.” 

He had absorbed “Black Beauty” into the 
very marrow of his bones, as he had absorbed 
the “Jungle Book,” and consequently Black 
Auster never felt the whip, nor heard harsh 
words. They were soon within shooting dis- 
tance of the lion. Michael pulled the trigger, 
the gun went off with an awful bang, and the 
lion roared so loud that everything was swal- 
lowed up in the noise, and sprang right on 
them. It knocked Michael off on one side, 
and Mr. Jane Dove on the other, but Black 
Auster was so strong that by bracing himself 
with all four legs he managed to stand firm, al- 
though the lion landed right on top of him. 
Mr. J ane Dove and Michael scrambled to their 
feet, and each stuck a sword into the lion just 
as it was preparing to gobble up the brave 
Black Auster, who would rather be eaten than 
desert his masters. Then they patted and 
praised Black Auster, and skinned the lion the 
way Mowgli skinned Sheer Khan, and rode 
home triumphantly with his hide. 

197 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

Next morning Susan’s father, with a more 
genial countenance than he had worn for some 
days, announced that Susan was a little better. 
“Michael, she wanted to know if you and Nie- 
der had it,” he said, “and when I told her you 
were alone in your glory, she said she hoped 
you weren’t awfully lonely.” 

“Tell her I’m not a bit lonely!” Michael 
shouted back, benevolently anxious to set her 
mind at rest. “Tell her Mr. Jane Dove and 
I killed a hon yesterday.” 

Many were the exploits Michael and Mr. 
Jane Dove had in the lumberman country dur- 
ing the weeks that followed. They had wild 
chases after wolves and jackals, in which all 
Black Auster’s swiftness was needed, and they 
had fights with tigers and bears, and one day 
Michael caught a wild horse, with which he had 
a desperate tussle. It threw him every time 
he tried to get on its back, and when he tried 
to hold it with a rope it dragged him along the 
ground, and he had to call Mr. Jane Dove to 
his assistance, and the two of them together 
could barely keep their feet when it pranced 
198 


“MONARCH OF ALL I SURVEY” 

and kicked and struggled to get away. They 
could never have managed it at all if Black 
Auster had not been there to subdue it period- 
ically with his beautiful eyes. Michael, how- 
ever, never forgot that kind words and pats 
(at the rare intervals when it was still enough 
to pat) would conquer in the end. He named 
this horse Hotspur, and when he got tired of 
Black Auster’s perfection (although he never 
put it that way, even to himself) he rode on 
Hotspur, and had wild struggles, generally 
ending in a runaway, and being rescued by Mr. 
Jane Dove and Black Auster. Then, when 
he thought it was his turn to be the hero, he 
gave Mr. Jane Dove over to Hotspur’s tender 
mercies, and he and Black Auster accomplished 
some marvellous rescues. Sometimes the sit- 
uation was further complicated by the arrival 
of a bear or a tiger on the scene in the midst of 
a struggle with Hotspur. Then there was 
general heroism. Michael saved Mr. Jane 
Dove and Black Auster from the very jaws 
of the wild beast, and Mr. Jane Dove saved 
Michael and Black Auster, and Black Auster 
199 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

saved Michael and Mr. Jane Dove, and they 
all saved Hotspur, and Hotspur tried his best 
to kick and trample them all at once, and the 
wild beast tried his best to eat them all one 
after the other; and any tangle that could not 
be straightened out by swords and guns and 
heroism always yielded instantly to Black 
Auster’s beautiful eyes. But Black Auster 
was considerate enough to refrain from using 
his beautiful eyes till Michael and Mr. Jane 
Dove had had full scope for their heroism. 
When, in addition to all this, it is recorded that 
they went to sea in the Bright Starting Out^ 
and could only by constant watchfulness and 
prompt action save themselves from being en- 
gulfed in the deep, it will be seen that Mi- 
chael’s life by no means lacked excitement dur- 
ing those weeks of solitude, when he tumbled 
around in the snow in such an utterly wild 
and senseless manner. But there were quiet 
intervals between the adventures — ^when the 
sea was calm and they could stand side by side 
at the mast of their ship, or when they were 
200 


“MONARCH OF ALL I SURVEY” 

riding quietly home on Black Auster and 
Hotspur, laden with hides and bear-steaks — 
and then they had long, delightful talks about 
everything. Mr. Jane Dove was as good a 
companion as he was a hero. With him, Mi- 
chael discussed all the mysteries that filled him 
with such curiosity. There was the way you 
grew, for instance. He had remarked once 
before Susan’s father how wonderful that was, 
and he had burst out laughing. But Mr. 
J ane Dove wondered over it with Michael, and 
had thought about it as often. Then, he was 
as much interested in fairies, and knew a lot 
about them. He told Michael that the little 
stars on the snow were the fairies’ old clothes 
that they had thrown away, and this gave Mi- 
chael some idea of the splendour of their ap- 
parel. He tried hard to show them to Mi- 
chael, but it was always when Michael was 
not around that he saw them. Once he pulled 
up Black Auster in a hurry and said: — 
“Look! Look! There is one flying across in 
front of us!” But it flew so fast that by the 
201 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


time Michael looked it was gone. That was 
the nearest Michael ever came to seeing a 
fairy. 

Nieder was never very sick — indeed, he got 
off so easily that the doctor denied him the 
dignity of having scarlet fever at all, and 
called it scarlatina. His careful mother, how- 
ever, took as many precautions as if it had 
been the real thing, and although he was able 
to run about the house in a few days, he was 
quarantined for the regulation eight weeks. 
However, Michael could stand at the gate and 
wave to him, and every night he wrote an 
account of his adventures with Mr. Jane 
Dove, usually illustrated, tied it to a little 
stone, and threw it as near the window Nieder 
appeared at as it would go. Then Nieder’s 
face broke into a broad smile, and his mother 
ran out and picked up the note and brought 
it in. 

Week after week passed, and Brian did not 
come back. Michael’s father used to stretch 
himself lazily after meals, and say ; — "^Ach 
aidhe! If only Brian would come back, and 
202 


‘‘MONARCH OF ALL I SURVEY” 


pick up the crumbs for us!” The one form of 
housework he never could reconcile himself to 
was sweeping. He loved cooking, and he 
didn’t mind mending, although it was so hard 
to make the mends look nice, but the only 
time Michael ever saw him cross was when he 
had to sweep. He loved to shock old Colqu- 
houn, who was a scrupulous sweeper, by ex- 
pounding the theory that as long as you left 
dust undisturbed it did you no harm. “But, 
mon! It’s there old Colquhoun would ex- 
claim, wrinkling up his face in horrified dis- 
gust. 

“Well, what does that matter, as long as it 
doesn’t do you any harm?” inquired Michael’s 
father. 

“Losh!” exclaimed old Colquhoun, breath- 
less with horror. “It does your soul harm to 
leave it there,” he added with awful severity. 
Then Michael’s father laughed like a mis- 
chievous boy, and old Colquhoun’s face wrin- 
kled up in spite of him. 

At last, one morning when Michael was 
throwing his account of yesterday’s adventures 
203 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


to Nieder, Brian and one of his friends came 
running along the river road. As soon as 
Brian saw Michael he quietly separated from 
the friend, and followed Michael home, to his 
great joy. He had been away just three 
weeks, Michael gathered from his father’s con- 
versations with old Colquhoun. 

It was five weeks longer before the three 
playmates met again. Nieder was allowed 
outdoors a few days before he was out of quar- 
antine, and he and Michael could carry on a 
conversation at shouting distance. “Say, Mi- 
chael, those Mr. Jane Dove stories were fine,” 
were his first words. He had been having a 
dull and lonely enough time to be glad of even 
imaginary adventures. 

“You don’t look a bit sick,” replied Michael. 
“Susan has been awfully sick.” 

“You might as well be good and sick while 
you’re at it,” said Nieder. “It’s some fun 
when you’re in bed. They made a great fuss 
at first, and gave me big white candies for my 
throat, and then I got well, but I had to 
stay in the house and not play with any of my 
204 


“MONARCH OF ALL I SURVEY” 


good toys because I was having scarlatina, 
but still I didn’t have any more nice things 
than if I was a well person. It’s mean 
to have scarlatina and not be good and 
sick.” 

This point of view was incomprehensible to 
Michael. It was an unbearable humiliation 
to him to be sick in bed, and all the attendant 
sympathy and petting could not compensate 
for the loss of liberty. 

Nieder got out of quarantine a day before 
Susan, and the two boys had a most joyful 
time scuffling and racing and sliding dovmhill, 
and carrying on till they were fairly helpless 
with laughter. 

Susan and Michael had been eager to meet, 
but when they met they could think of no bet- 
ter way of celebrating the event than by star- 
ing solemnly at each other, without saying a 
word. At last Michael inquired, in awe- 
struck tones: — ‘‘Did you change your skin hke 
the boy in town?” 

“Yes, every bit of it,” replied Susan 
proudly. 


205 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

“Your legs are awfully long. You look 
like a stork.” 

“I grew an awful lot,” said Susan, in the 
same proud tone, as if scarlet fever and all its 
attendant circumstances were a wonderful 
achievement. “I’ve outgrown all my dresses. 
Mother has to go right to work and make new 
ones. Father says I’m a guy, and he can’t 
take me to church till mother finishes the new 
dresses.” (Susan gave a joyful skip at this 
point.) “Did Nieder grow too?” 

“He didn’t get nearly as tall as you. He’s 
as fat as a pig.” 

“Was he as sick as me?” 

“No, he wasn’t very sick. He has been 
running around outside lately, but we couldn’t 
get at each other till yesterday. Your clothes 
smell so funny, Susan.” 

“That’s the disaffection.” 

“What is disaffection?” 

“It’s the stuff that’s put all over everything 
after you have been sick. Father and mother 
have been putting it all over everything for a 
week.” 


206 


‘‘MONARCH OF ALL I SURVEY” 


Just then Nieder came along, and the three 
started sliding downhill as if nothing had ever 
happened to break their happy fellowship. 


207 


CHAPTER XV 

BRIAN 

Up to this time, Brian had been a joy and 
pride both to Michael and his father; now he 
became their trouble and their torment. He 
never stayed away for three weeks again, hut 
he went away nearly every night, and some- 
times stayed for several days. He was well 
scolded when he came home ; Michael had some 
painful moments when he came in and heard 
his father saying in awful tones: — “Shame on 
you, bad, bad dog!” and saw Brian crouching 
down, a quivering yellow mass of shame, and 
knew he must not say a word to protect him, 
because it was too sadly true that he deserved 
reproach. Tam kept pace with Brian in mis- 
chief as in everything else, and was often away 
at the same time. They were still deadly ene- 
mies, and one day when the children were up 
208 


BRIAN 


at the Rebel’s House they heard awful growls 
and yelps in the woods. “It’s Brian and 
Tam!” cried Michael, and dashed out into the 
woods as hard as he could go. There was 
deep, soft snow, but he floundered through it 
somehow, Nieder after him. 

“Oh, we must hurry! We must hurry T he 
cried. “They’ll kill each other! Father — 
and old Colquhoun — said they would!” 

The noises became more and more awful, 
and he thought they would never struggle 
through that snow and get to them. At last, 
trembling and hot and exhausted, he came 
upon the combatants. One was on top, with 
the hair bristling all along his back and neck, 
and Michael thought he was actually eating the 
other up. Which one was it? He gave one 
last struggle forward, caught the dog’s tail, 
and, not having strength to tug, fell backwards 
into the snow. The dog was forced to let go, 
and proved to be Brian. Tam rolled over 
feebly, and sat up. He was bleeding at the 
neck. 

“Nieder, you take him to old Colquhoun’s, 
209 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

and I’ll bring Brian home,” said Michael. 
Brian, bristling and growling, tried to spring 
on Tam again, and it took all the strength of 
both boys to hold him. Susan, meanwhile, had 
run home to her father with the news that 
Brian and Tam were fighting in the woods, 
and that the boys had run off to them and she 
thought they were going to be killed. He had 
said: — “Good gracious!” and started off, and 
now he arrived on the scene. “Well, this is a 
pretty mess! Michael, that dog of yours is 
going to get you into enough trouble before 
you’re done with him. He ought to be shot!” 
With this soothing speech, he reached down his 
hand between the two boys to grab Brian, but 
Michael struck it roughly away. “Don’t you 
touch him!” he cried. 

“Look here. I’m not going to stand treat- 
ment like this,” said Susan’s father, really an- 
gry. 

“I’m sorry I struck you. But I won’t have 
any one talk that way about Brian!” cried 
Michael, crimson with rage and exertion. 

210 


BRIAN 


“Well, he’s done for that dog of old Colqu- 
houn’s.” 

“Do you mean Tam will die?” cried Mi- 
chael. 

“Of course he will. He can’t hve with a 
wound like that in his neck.” 

“Take him home. He is not to die here, 
and we can’t let go of Brian,” said Michael. 

“I have something else to do than carry 
home old Colquhoun’s dying dogs for him,” 
said Susan’s father. But fortunately his 
deeds were more gracious than his words, as 
they could well afford to be. He went and 
got old Colquhoun, and between them they 
bathed and bandaged Tam, and brought him 
home. Susan’s father, with his usual kindly 
tact, had magnified the gravity of the situa- 
tion. Tam was very badly hurt, but he had a 
good chance of recovery, and he did recover. 
Old Colquhoun nursed him conscientiously, 
but without emotion, for Tam was becoming 
more distasteful to him all the time. “He 
canna get into ony mischief for twa ooks at 
211 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

least, and that is a great relief, sae dinna fash 
yourseF,” he said to Michael’s father, when the 
latter was expressing the utmost distress over 
the occurrence. 

‘Tt wasn’t Jessie, anyway,” said Michael. 

“Na. Puir auld Jessie, it is to her ye should 
mak’ these handsome speeches. She’ll no 
leave Tam’s side, I maun even bring her her 
meals there.” 

‘Ts that why she didn’t come over here with 
you?” Michael inquired. 

“Yes. She wouldna visit onybody the noo.' 
I open the door and say:^ — ‘Come, Jessie, wiD 
ye no come oot wi’ me for a walk?’ and she 
looks at me wi’ her grave e’en, and says as plain 
as words — ‘Ha’e ye nae heart, that ye can 
speak o’ sic things?’ ” 

In a couple of weeks Tam was as well as 
ever, but the hair never grew where the wound 
had been. There was a long bare streak in 
his white shirt front. This was the one mark 
by which a stranger could have told the two 
dogs apart. 

Brian was carefully watched now, but still 
212 


BRIAN 


he got away much oftener than was desirable. 
One morning in the spring Susan’s father 
came over with his most savage aspect. 
“Look here,” he said to Michael’s father, not 
even waiting to say good morning, “this isn’t 
going to do. A pack of dogs got in among 
my sheep last night, and ran them down, and 
I’m going to lose two in consequence. That 
dog of yours was among them. It was moon- 
light, and I saw him.” 

“Are you sure it was my dog?” inquired Mi- 
chael’s father. He had no wish to accuse 
Tam, but he could not help feeling it an in- 
justice to Brian that they looked so alike when 
Tam was so much the worse of the two, and 
his hot Irish blood was stirred by the tone 
Susan’s father saw fit to use. 

“Yes, I’m sure. I saw him, I tell you.” 

“Very well. I’ll pay for your sheep,” said 
Michael’s father shortly. 

“If I were you, I’d shoot that dog. He’ll 
land you in trouble yet,” said Susan’s father 
as he took his departure. 

“I am not going to shoot my dog,” retorted 
213 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

Michaers father, with great distinctness and 
decision. 

When old Colquhoun heard of this he was 
indignant. “It was Tam!” he said. “It was 
never your laddie. It was I wha should ha’e 
paid for the sheep. That dog will cost me 
dear yet. If Jessie was no sae fond o’ him, 
I’d send him awa’ to-morrow.” 

“He declared it was my dog,” said Michael’s 
father. 

“It was no your dog, and I’ll gae mysel’ and 
tell him sae,” said old Colquhoun. He did so, 
and was advised to shoot his dog. And in 
spite of all he could say, Susan’s father clung 
to the idea that it was Brian. 

“That mon’s head canna hand mair than ane 
thocht at a time, and ye canna get it oot wi’ a 
pickaxe,” old Colquhoun burst out to Michael’s 
father afterwards, and Michael suddenly burst 
into a wild shout of laughter, that was posi- 
tively demonish in its appreciative glee. His 
antagonism to Susan’s father had increased 
since the sheep episode, for since then Brian 
had been kept a close prisoner, and this was 
214 


BRIAN 


more than Michael could stand. He could 
not bear to see the beautiful creature that loved 
so to race and romp and roll about on the grass, 
shut up in the house day after day, and only 
let out when he and his father were both 
around, watching every movement and ready 
to call him back if he even looked toward the 
road. One day Michael’s father tried the ex- 
periment of chaining him in the yard, but in 
a very few minutes he was forcibly convinced 
that the proud spirit of Brian Boroimhe would 
never bend to that. He jerked backwards, 
squealing and struggling in such a wild frenzy 
that neither Michael nor his father dared ap- 
proach, and when he finally got his head 
out of the collar, ran down cellar and could 
not be coaxed up for the rest of the day. It 
was after this episode that the first cold, awful 
shadow of an approaching calamity came over 
Michael. One day after dinner, when Brian 
was picking up the crumbs, his father re- 
marked: — “Michael, do you know what I 
would do with Brian if he were my dog?” 

“What?” asked Michael. 

215 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


‘‘I would find some kind people with a nice 
place, where there are no sheep around, and 
where he could be free all the time, and give 
him to them.” 

“I won’t give Brian to anybody!” cried Mi- 
chael, so passionately that his father said 
nothing more. But although Michael fought 
fiercely against the idea of ever giving Brian 
up for anybody or anything, although it was 
a calamity too black and awful to be believed 
in, he knew, underneath all this rebellion, that 
it would come to pass as surely as the sun rose 
and set, once his father had said: — ‘T would 
do it if he were my dog.” He had come to 
love Brian more passionately, the wilder and 
more intractable he became. It was his nature 
to love whatever was wild and beautiful and 
hard to subdue, and when he found that Brian 
could not bear the chain his fellow feeling was 
stronger than ever. It was his nature, also, 
to cling to his friends with the more defiant 
tenacity the deeper they sank into trouble, the 
more they were blamed, and the more ear- 
nestly cooler headed people tried to loosen the 
216 


BRIAN 


bond. It was his nature to fly hotly and furi- 
ously in the face of whoever attempted to in- 
terfere between him and the beloved object 
(unless, with the utmost gentleness and tact, 
his father essayed the task), and the more 
trouble and heartache it gave him, the stronger 
his love grew. All these traits developed in 
Michael during the hot, unhappy, angry 
months when he took his stand by Brian, dis- 
graced and imprisoned, against the world. 

Old Colquhoun was the only person who 
poured balm on his sore and burning sensi- 
bihties by persistent faith in Brian’s inno- 
cence. “He never did it,” he reiterated. “He 
may be wild, but there are things I could trust 
him no to do as I could trust ma ain Jessie. 
He never ran doon sheep, and he never will.” 

Tam was kept chained now, and took kindly 
enough to it. He sat up for tidbits whenever 
anybody approached his kennel, and grew fat 
and sleek and lazy. Brian, too, sobered down 
as the summer advanced and the weather grew 
hot. He got so quiet that he could be trusted 
out all day, and Michael and his father began 
217 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


to enjoy him again. But just as they were 
beginning to forget all their troubles in this 
period of peace, they began again. Brian sud- 
denly took to his old restless ways once more, 
without any warning, and about the same time 
Tam took to breaking his chain. Then Su- 
san’s father started to complain of harried 
sheep, and the old miserable business of shut- 
ting up and watching Brian had to be begun 
once more. But in spite of all their care he 
kept breaking away, and one morning Susan’s 
father came over with the news that a sheep 
had been killed, and Dick (the hired boy) had 
seen the dog do it, and declared it was Brian. 

“Ma dog has been awa’ for three days,” old 
Colquhoun, who happened to be there, broke 
in. ‘T tell ye it was ma dog. He’d stop at 
naething !” 

“There is no way of telling, except by the 
scar,” said Michael’s father. 

“The best thing to do would be to shoot them 
both,” Susan’s father replied. 

“One dog or the other will be disposed of, 
but not both,” replied Michael’s father. “And 
218 


BRIAN 


kindly understand this, once and for all. I 
am not going to shoot my dog, for you or any 
man!” 

‘‘It beats me how you can be so stuck on the 
brute. But come over now with me, and I’ll 
ask Dick, before you, if the dog had a scar on 
the front of his neck. Then you’ll be satis- 
fied.” 

“As you have informed me at different times 
that Dick is a scalawag and a fool, I can’t be 
expected to trust much to his evidence. But 
I suppose I shall have to take it, such as it 
is.” 

Dick, whose countenance resembled that of 
an imbecile mink, said he didn’t know as 
the dog had a scar. When questioned more 
closely, he expressed a readiness to swear to it 
that the dog had no scar. So Michael’s father 
paid for the sheep, and went home sorrowful, 
angry, and unconvinced. 

That afternoon, as Michael was feeding a 
brood of chickens, his father came and stood 
over them, looking down at them absently and 
very gravely. “Michael, there is no help for 
219 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


— when Brian comes back he will have to be 
sent away,” he said. 

Michael’s grief was deep and bitter. When 
he saw Susan’s father coming over that eve- 
ning, he stood and glared at him without speak- 
ing, and would not go in while he was there. 
But he heard something, through the open door, 
that gave the final edge to his resentment. 
‘‘If he feels so cut up about it as all that, why 
not say you’re just lending Brian, and let him 
think he will get him back some day? It’ll 
wear off after awhile, and he will forget all 
about the brute.” 

Michael ran down to the barn, even his sor- 
row temporarily swallowed up in rage. “He 
thinks I’m a boy to he lied to!” he broke out 
to Mr. Jane Dove, stamping his foot on the 
floor and clenching his hands. “He thinks I’ll 
forget Brian! I’ll never forget him!” He 
suddenly broke out into passionate sobs. 

“You can have Black Auster whenever you 
want to go and see him,” said Mr. Jane Dove. 

“But it wouldn’t be really seeing him! He 
might be dead while I was playing I was see- 
220 


BRIAN 


ing him!” This was the first time imagination 
had ever failed to console. It was a small, hut 
significant incident in Michael’s development, 
and showed that all this pain and passion was 
sweeping him, slowly but surely, out from “the 
glory and the dream” of childhood, into the 
merciless realities of grown-up life. 

“I wish I was big enough to knock Susan’s 
father down!” he broke out presently. “I’m 
going to have it out with him as soon as I’m 
big, if he isn’t too old then.” 

Perhaps the method Susan’s father adopted 
of being conciliating was no more graceful than 
his manner of being aggressive, but he really 
meant well to-night. He saw Michael’s father 
had been ruffled, and as he liked him, he 
thought he would try now to “smooth him 
down.” He had a cousin who hved in a town 
a great many miles away, with whom he was 
plainly not on the friendliest terms, and he im- 
plied that it would give him great satisfaction 
to be the means of getting this cousin saddled 
with Brian. This was his method of smooth- 
ing Michael’s father down. He described the 
221 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


cousin as “a shiftless milksop,” but said he was 
fond of animals and would be good to the 
brute, his tone implying that this weakness 
stamped his cousin’s order of intellect. He 
finally got the authority of Michael’s father 
to write to him and arrange about Brian. 

So Brian was sent off a week later. He had 
to be put in a harness with a chain fastened to 
it, and it was dreadful to Michael to see him 
so for the last time. They had a long, sad 
drive to town. Michael cared for nothing he 
saw or heard along the wild, alluring road, for 
he was sitting in the back of the waggon, with 
his arms around Brian’s neck (he would not 
hold him by the chain) . At the station a man 
came up and remarked what a fine collie they 
had there, and Michael was choked with tears 
as he remembered how proud and joyful that 
would have made him in the old happy days 
that were all over now. Then the train came 
in, and Brian was led into the dark baggage 
car and chained there. 

They drove back at dusk into their own yard, 
where no beautiful Brian would ever bound 
222 


BRIAN 


over the grass again. Everything was com- 
fortless and lonely and silent. The tears ran 
down Michael’s cheeks as he tried to choke 
down his tea, with no Brian waiting to pick 
up the crumbs. There was an intolerable still- 
ness and emptiness everywhere he had been 
used to see the beloved yellow form, with its 
white ruff, alert ears and lovely waving tail. 


223 


CHAPTER XVI 


CLEARED 

Michael and his father passed two lonely, 
eventless weeks after that. Michael never 
went over to old Colquhoun’s, for he could not 
bear to see Tam. The latter still continued 
to break his chain. One afternoon, Susan’s 
father and Dick were picking up apples near 
the sheep pasture, when they heard the ter- 
rified bleating that meant dogs. “Good gra- 
cious!” said Susan’s father, and started for the 
pasture on the run, Dick after him. They got 
there just in time to see Tam kill a sheep, with 
the dexterity of an old hand. 

“That’s the dog I saw that evening before,” 
said Dick. 

“What do you mean?” demanded Susan’s 
father. “You told me that dog had no sear.” 

“Oh yes, it had.” 


224 


CLEARED 


“What did you mean by telling such a 
lie?” 

“Please, sir, I thought you wanted me to 
say it hadn’t no scar,” cringed Dick. 

“You young idiot, I wanted you to tell the 
truth, and if I catch you at such a lie again 
I’ll fire you.” 

Susan’s father marched straight over to see 
Michael’s father, and tell him what had hap- 
pened. “Now, if you want that dog of yours 
back, I’ve no doubt my cousin will take old 
Colquhoun’s instead of him,” he said. 

Meanwhile Michael was wandering forlornly 
about the yard, with no heart to join his play- 
mates in the Rebel’s House, or even to summon 
that other playmate who never had been neg- 
lected before. There had been no hunting 
trips to the lumberman country since Brian’s 
departure. There had been several passionate 
conversations with Mr. Jane Dove, and the lat- 
ter had vowed vengeance on Susan’s father; 
but Michael’s eyes suddenly became opened 
wide to the unsatisfactory nature of imaginary 
vengeance on a very tangible foe. Mr. Jane 
225 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


Dove’s wonderful sword was powerless to deal 
with a situation that demanded a pair of power- 
ful human fists; and it would be many years 
before the fists would be big and powerful 
enough to deal with it. 

As Michael was wandering about the yard, 
hot and sore and lonely, he heard a dog gallop- 
ing and panting behind him. He turned 
round, startled and bewildered, and in another 
moment the dog had sprung upon him with 
such force that he was knocked over on his 
back, and the animal stood over him hcking his 
face. He managed to scramble to his feet, and 
force the dog to stand back to be scrutinized. 
“Brian!” he cried, and then the boy and dog 
rolled over and over on the grass, kissing and 
embracing and crying over one another. 

“Father will never send you away again 
after this!” he kept assuring Brian and him- 
self. 

Brian was a sadly altered dog. The harness 
that had fitted him when he went away was 
still on, but he was so thin that it hung loose 
and rattled with every movement. The white 
226 


CLEARED 


shirt front hung in grey ropes of mud, his coat 
was a mass of burrs, and all along his back 
coarse black hairs had grown. “Was it because 
you felt so black inside that those hairs grew 
on you?” Michael had asked him, and indeed 
this was the only explanation that was ever 
found for them. 

After he and Michael had spent about 
twenty minutes making a fuss over each other, 
he went to the hens’ pan and took a long, long 
drink ; then Michael, thinking from his terrible 
thinness that he had not had a bite to eat since 
he went away, started to the house to get him 
something, but suddenly remembered that Su- 
san’s father was there. Whatever happened, 
he must not know that Brian had come hack. 
He would say the dog ought to be shot, and 
force his father to send him away again. There 
was a wild, delicious excitement in the thought 
of hiding him from Susan’s father. It was like 
a story, which wouldn’t be over soon, either. 
It would have to be kept up all his life. Mi- 
chael laughed gleefully under his breath as he 
thought of the great times they would have 
227 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

keeping their secret. There would be all the 
exhilaration of warfare about it, Susan’s father 
being such a deadly enemy. It would be some- 
thing like having a patriot for a friend and hid- 
ing him from a Sacsanach policeman. As he 
neared the house he heard the rough, jerky 
tones that sounded so savage and bloodthirsty 
to his excited and hostile imagination. He 
crept down the cellar steps, saying to himself 
triumphantly that his feet on the stones didn’t 
make the least bit of noise, and neither did 
Brian’s, as he followed. He lifted the latch 
of the door with the utmost care, and pushed 
it open so cautiously that it barely creaked — 
it “just whispered a creak,” and Susan’s father 
was laughing just then in his “horrid savage 
way,” and couldn’t possibly hear the sound. 
He didn’t attempt to shut it again, but stole 
in. Brian’s" harness rattled, and had to be held 
so it wouldn’t. He crept over to the milk 
shelf. Just then Mr. Jane Dove appeared, 
and opened his mouth to exclaim at the sight 
of Brian, but Michael lifted a warning hand, 
and pointed to the floor. 

228 


CLEARED 


“He got back, but we must keep him from 
knowing,” he whispered. 

Mr. Jane Dove nodded entire comprehen- 
sion, and put his hand on his sword in a grimly 
suggestive manner. “If he ever gets at Brian, 
he’ll find out something about this,” he whis- 
pered. 

“Yes,” said Michael thoughtfully. “But 
you couldn’t really save him.” 

Mr. Jane Dove accepted this snub meekly, 
although he might well have been surprised. 
“Really” was a startling innovation in Mi- 
chael’s vocabulary. 

Just then Michael’s eye fell on half a tongue 
that stood on the end of the row of milk pans. 
Nieder’s mother had brought it over a few 
nights before, and his father had been very 
much pleased. 

“I wonder if father would mind if I gave 
him this,” he whispered to Mr. Jane Dove. 
“It’s the only thing I can get for him, except 
milk, while he^s in the house.” 

Just then Brian sat up for it, looking 
hungrier than Michael had ever felt in his hfe. 

229 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


“I’m sure your father would give it to him 
if he knew he had come back about a hundred 
miles, and hadn’t had a bite to eat all the time,” 
replied Mr. Jane Dove. 

So the tongue was fed to Brian, who gobbled 
it ravenously, and then Michael stole out, hold- 
ing the smallest pan of milk against himself 
with one hand, and Brian’s harness with the 
other. When he got to the head of the cellar 
steps Brian stood up on his hind legs and began 
to drink out of the pan as he held it, so he set 
it down, although he had meant to carry it to 
the safe seclusion of the stable. As soon as 
Brian was done drinking he tried to bring him 
there, but the dog flopped down on the ground 
and would not stir, although Michael stroked 
his head, “to thaw him out,” as he used to do 
when he wanted to make him follow anywhere. 
But he was utterly exhausted, and fell sound 
asleep, where Susan’s father could not fail to 
see him as soon as he came out. Michael was 
in wretchedness for a few minutes; then he 
went to the woodpile and got a big box, and 
dragged it over and put it between Brian and 
230 


CLEARED 


the door. Then he settled happily down on 
the grass, and tried to take off the harness. 
The buckles were stiff with rust, and he 
had to cut it with his penknife. Then he 
began taking out the burrs. His very tail 
(that beautiful, plumy tail) was matted with 
them. He did not look the least bit like Mi- 
chael’s Brian, but Michael did not care, so long 
as he had him safe. He was full of peace and 
contentment as he sat there in the warm after- 
noon sun, gently and patiently taking out the 
burrs. Mr. Jane Dove sat on the box and 
talked. ‘‘The best thing for you and your 
father to do,” he said, “would be to build a 
great, high tower, with no doors or windows in 
it, and a way of getting in underground that 
no one could know about. The roof could be 
flat, and he could run round up there all day, 
and come down into the other part at night. 
Of course there would have to be a high fence 
round the roof, so that he couldn’t see Brian. 
Then on Sundays, when he is at church, you 
could bring him down and give him a beautiful 
time all day.” 


231 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


They had been there a long time, laying 
plans of concealment, when "'he'' came out. 
Michael crouched down behind the box, but 
his father began to say something, and in an 
instant Brian awoke, pricked up his ears, and 
had bounded over the box before the horrified 
Michael could stop him. He stood up on his* 
hind legs and actually put his arms around Mi- 
chael’s father’s neck, while Michael, with set, 
defiant jaw and fiery eyes, squared up to Su- 
san’s father. ‘T wasn’t going to let you know 
he was back. I was trying to hide him,” he 
said. “But now you’ve seen him, I don’t care 
what you say, or what you do, I’m not going 
to let you make my father send him away 
again.” 

“It was all a mistake, Mike,” said Susan’s 
father. “But good gracious, how did he ever 
get back?” 

“He’s just skin and bone,” said Michael’s 
father, with tears in his eyes. “Oh, Brian, if 
you had killed all the sheep in the country, I 
could never send you away again !” 

“I knew you wouldn’t!” cried Michael. 

232 


CLEARED 


“Gimme your paw, Brian. I beg your par- 
don for accusing you of that dirty trick,” said 
Susan’s father. 

But Brian was too much absorbed in his 
master to pay any attention to apologies from 
Susan’s father, so the latter turned to Michael, 
holding out his hand. “Look here, Mike, I 
hope it’s all right now,” he said. 

“Did you find out he didn’t do it?” asked 
Michael. 

“Yes, I saw that other one at it with my 
own eyes, and Dick was fool enough to own up 
that he lied.” 

“I knew he did. Susan never believes any- 
thing he says.” 

“Too bad Brian had a trip for nothing. 
However, he’s seen the world now, and can' 
talk big to his friends. Say, Mike, is it all 
right, and shall we let bygones be bygones?” 

“Yes,” said Michael, beaming as he had 
never beamed on Susan’s father before. He 
was so happy that he felt at charity with the 
whole world. 

“I’ll go over to old Colquhoun’s now, and 
233 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


settle about his dog; I’m sure my cousin would 
rather have him, scar and all, than the sort of 
scarecrow yours is now.” 

“We’re going to give him lots to eat, and 
take out all those burrs, and he will get just 
as beautiful as ever again,” retorted Michael 
hotly. “Won’t he. Father?” he added anx- 
iously, when Susan’s father was out of hear- 
ing. 

“I hope so. But he is sadly run down, and 
it will take a long time to get him back to what 
he was. To think of what he must have suf- 
fered, and all because of that little dmaddn! 
I’d like to have the thrashing of him. How- 
ever, it’s over, and Susan’s father is really 
sorry about it — so remember, Michael, we must 
let bygones be bygones.” 

Brian had his old place under the tea-table 
that night, and was fed with the choicest mor- 
sels from both plates without being given the 
trouble of sitting up for them, and after tea 
he picked up the crumbs in his old dainty way. 
Michael and his father had just settled down 
on the doorstep, with him between them, and 
234 


CLEARED 


begun on tHe burrs again, when old Colquhoun 
and Jessie came over. Brian sprang up and 
made a great fuss over them both; old Col- 
quhoun responded warmly, but, to Michael’s 
great surprise, Jessie did not. She only en- 
dured the caresses with patient dignity, and 
settled down in her usual still, stately way by 
her master’s side. 

“Surely she hasn’t forgotten Brian?” said 
Michael. 

“Na, na. But she’s getting too auld to care. 
I’m thinkin’ she’ll no miss Tam as she would 
ha’e done a few ooks ago. Weel, I’m glad 
Brian’s cleared. I kenned he was innocent. 
Puir, leal auld laddie, when I heard what he’d 
done the tears ran oot o’ ma e’en, and I ha’e 
nae doot that auld bletherskate ca’s me the noo 
by his favourite pet name for Dick.” 

“I suppose you’re glad to get rid of Tam,” 
said Michael’s father. 

“I could dance wi’ joy if I wasna ower auld,” 
replied Colquhoun. 

“But perhaps he will come back in the same 
touching manner,” said Michael’s father. 

235 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


“Catch him! He’ll bide wherever there’s 
guid farin’ and a saft bed. I canna feel that 
he’s Jessie’s ain flesh and bluid.” 

That night Brian would sleep nowhere but 
on the floor beside Michael’s bed, and as it was 
understood between Michael and his father 
that he was to have everything he wanted, and 
do exactly as he pleased, at least till he got 
some flesh on his bones and recovered enough 
spirit to be naughty sometimes, he did not ex- 
perience much difficulty in carrying out this 
wish. Michael’s father, much as he hated 
sweeping, brought in a generous armful of 
straw for him to lie on, and last thing before 
going to sleep Michael put down his hand 
and felt for him, and Brian put up his mouth 
and kissed it. Then they fell asleep, the most 
thoroughly happy and contented boy and dog 
on the riverside. 


236 


CHAPTER XVII 


‘'the sense of tears in mortal things” 

Next morning Brian, having devoted several 
hours of the night to his sadly neglected person, 
was a much more cheerful spectacle. The 
burrs were nearly all gone, and so was the mud 
(some of it had been shaken over Michael’s 
counterpane). The fluffy yellow hair and 
white shirt front that had been Michael’s pride 
were recovering some of their lost loveliness. 
He was unwilling to be separated a moment 
from either of his masters, but when he had to 
choose between them he chose Michael. The 
latter was sitting on the doorstep petting him 
after breakfast, when something bright at his 
feet caught his attention. It proved to be 
what he called "a silver beauty^ — ” a fifty cent 
piece. 

""Maiseadh!^^ exclaimed his father when he 
saw it. "That must have leaked out of old 
237 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


Colquhoun’s pocket. Talk about thrifty 
Scotchmen! We Irishmen could do no worse 
than that. It’s a pity he is not as particular 
about holes in his pockets as he is about dust 
in his house. Run right over with it, Michael, 
or he will be gone with Tam.” 

“Brian will follow me,” said Michael. 

“I’ll keep him,” said his father. 

Michael started off running and jumping, 
happy and gay and eager to tell old Colquhoun 
that Brian was beginning to get beautiful 
again. He burst joyfully into the lumber- 
man’s song as he came in the gate. Old Col- 
quhoun was sitting out in front, in a little rustic 
chair he had made out of the stump of a tree. 
He was bent over with his head on his hand, 
but when he heard Michael singing he came 
quickly down the path towards him. “Oh, 
laddie, I’m glad o’ ye,” he said in a queer 
choked voice, Michael looked up into his face, 
and saw, to his great surprise, that he was cry- 
ing. 

“Old Colquhoun — ^what is the matter?” he 
asked. 


238 


TEARS IN MORTAL THINGS 


‘Tt’s juist ma auld lassie. She had to gae 
— sometime.” 

“Do you mean that Jessie — Jessie — ” Mi- 
chael could not say the ugly word that was in 
his mind. Surely, surely nothing so dreadful 
could have happened as for Colquhoun to be 
without his old dog. 

“She’s deid.” Colquhoun said it as if it hurt 
him so much that he could not say anything 
more. 

Michael stood still in front of him, un- 
able to say a word. He had only felt his own 
joys and sorrows hitherto; now he felt old Col- 
quhoun’s grief in his own heart, and he felt 
sorrier than he had ever been about anything 
else in his hfe before, even Brian. It hurt 
and hurt, like the night his father read out to 
him about Black Beauty seeing a dead horse 
drawn past in a cart, and hoping it was Ginger ; 
but it hurt worse than that. He could not 
bear that old Colquhoun should feel as he had 
felt about Brian, only so much worse, because 
Jessie could never come back. He wanted so 
badly to do something to comfort him, and yet 
239 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

he could not think of anything — he could not 
even think of anything to say. 

‘‘She deed easily,” old Colquhoun went on 
after a long time. “I maun be thankfu’ for 
that. After we cam’ hame last nicht, she 
cam’ in wi’ me as she always does,” (Michael’s 
eyes filled with tears at the unconscious use of 
the present tense) “but when I spread her bed 
in the kitchen she wouldna lie doon. She went 
to the door, and stood looking at me to let her 
oot. I opened it, and she kissed ma hand, and 
gave me ane last look. I canna forget it — 
those e’en o’ hers — I never saw sic a look in 
the e’en o’ ony beast. I went to the door and 
ca’d her after a wee. She didna come. I 
went oot and looked wi’ the lantern, and she 
was lying a’maist at the door. If she had 
made a sound, I would ha’e heard her. She 
deed easily, there’s nae doot.” 

“I think she had a soul,” said Michael. 
“Don’t you remember telling me about the 
time she found a young bird that had dropped 
out of the nest, and how she stood and took 
care of it till you came? If she hadn’t had a 
240 


TEARS IN MORTAL THINGS 


soul, she would have eaten it. Perhaps she’s 
running round in Heaven now.” 

‘‘Na,” said old Colquhoun. “She’ll no be 
rinnin’ round. She’ll be sitting still as a stone, 
no lippening to onything, no looking to ane side 
or the ither — watching, watching for her 
master, wi’ those grave e’en, that were sae kind 
and canny — ” old Colquhoun was overcome by 
his tears for a few minutes. “I maun dig her 
grave,” he said at last. 

Michael followed him silently, and silently 
helped him dig the grave. When they had dug 
for some time, old Colquhoun said: — “Ye ha’e 
done enough, laddie. It’s ower heavy work 
for a bairn.” 

Michael looked up, and his eyes showed how 
sorry he felt. He stood leaning on his spade, 
unwilling to leave old Colquhoun alone at his 
dreary task. 

At last he inquired: — “When are you going 
to take Tam to town?” 

“This afternoon.” 

“Would you like me to come with you, and 
keep you company?” 


241 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 


“I would/’ said old Colquhoun gratefully, 
“if your feyther can spare ye.” 

Michael stood still and silent till Colquhoun 
had finished the grave. Then the latter said : — 
“Noo, laddie, ye’ve helped me through this 
sair task — ” 

“I only did a little bit,” said Michael. 

“Ye helped me by being here. If I had 
been alane — but noo, ye maun rin hame. But 
first, I want ye to promise me something.” 

“I’ll promise you anything,” said Michael. 
“You’re my greatest friend, except father of 
course, and I’ll never like any one as well.” 

“Na, na, that’s no what I ask, nor what I’ll 
tak,” said old Colquhoun. “That Nieder 
maun always be closer to ye than ony auld 
mon. Ye’ve played wi’ him sin’ ye were baith 
weans, and ye will till you’re men, and there’s 
nae bond like that. It’s sometimes closer than 
brothers.” 

“I do like Nieder just as well as if he was 
my brother,” said Michael. “Perhaps it would 
be more truthful to say that you and he both 
are my best friends.” 


242 


TEARS IN MORTAL THINGS 

“Come, come, I dinna rank sae high as that,” 
said old Colquhoun, his own whimsical smile 
breaking out over his grief furrowed face. 
“What aboot Mr. Jane Dove?” 

“I like you even better than him,” said Mi- 
chael, slowly, but decidedly. “He did run his 
sword through ten Sacsanaigh policemen and 
helped me kill a lion, but then he’s not real — 
at least, I like to think of him being real in a 
sort of a way, but he’s not real hke you.” 

“Na, he’s no like me,” said old Colquhoun 
indignantly. “I never was sic a savage, and 
if I had been I wouldna boast o’t as he does, 
and clank ma sword sae fiercely.” 

“But Sacsanaigh policemen and lions have 
to be killed,” said Michael. 

“Perhaps, but there’s ways and ways o’ 
killin! He doesna do’t as if it was a painfu’ 
duty. But aboot that promise, Michael. A’ 
I ask is that when you’re wi’ me ye’ll still he 
the laddie ye are the noo, though ye grow to be 
a mon to a’ the world.” 

“All right,” said Michael. 

But although Michael kept his promise, and 
243 


THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 

although he did not grow to be “a mon to a’ 
the world” for many years, he began to be a 
man at heart that very day, when he learned to 
grieve with other people even when his own 
heart was full of happiness, and when his in- 
visible friends had to take a step back to make 
room for those of flesh and blood. 


THE END 


244 


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